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WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

THE     AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 
A    SOLDIER    AND    SURGEON 

JOHN  ALLAN  WYETH,  M.D.,  LL.D. 

UNIVERSITIES  OF  ALABAMA  AND  MARYLAND 

FOUNDER  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  POLYCLINIC  MEDICAL  SCHOOL  AND 
HOSPITAL,  THE  PIONEER  ORGANIZATION  FOR  POSTGRADUATE 
MEDICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  AMERICA — PRESIDENT  OF  THE  FACULTY 
AND  SURGEON-IN-CHIEF ;  EX-PRESIDENT  OF  THE  AMERICAN  MEDICAL 
ASSOCIATION,  THE  NEW  YORK  ACADEMY  OF  MEDICINE,  THE  NEW 
YORK  STATE  MEDICAL  ASSOCIATION,  THE  NEW  YORK  PATHOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY,  THE  NEW  YORK  SOUTHERN  SOCIETY,  AND  THE  ALABAMA 
SOCIETY  OF  NEW  YORK  CITY;  FORMERLY  ATTENDING  SURGEON  TO 
MT.  SINAI  AND  ST.  ELIZABETH  HOSPITALS;  HONORARY  MEMBER  OF 
THE  MEDICAL  SOCIETY  OF  NEW  JERSEY  AND  OF  THE  TEXAS  STATE 
MEDICAL  association;  AUTHOR  OF  ESSAYS  IN  SURGICAL  ANATOMY 
AND  surgery;  AWARDED  THE  FIRST  AND  SECOND  PRIZES  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  MEDICAL  ASSOCIATION  IN  1878  AND  THE  BELLEVUE  ALUMNI 
ASSOCIATION  PRIZE  IN  1876;  A  TEXT-BOOK  ON  GENERAL  SURGERY; 
THE  LIFE  OF  LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  NATHAN  BEDFORD  FORREST; 
HISTORY  OF  LA  GRANGE  MILITARY  ACADEMY  AND  THE  CADET 
corps;    A  HISTORICAL  ESSAY  ON  THE   STRUGGLE  FOR  OREGON,  ETC. 


JOHN    ALLAN    WYETH,    M.D.,    LL.D. 
From  a  photograph  by  Bradley,  1914 


WITH   SABRE 
AND  SCALPEL 

THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
OF    A    SOLDIER    AND     SURGEON 

BY 

JOHN  ALLAN  WYETH 

M.D.,  LL.D. 

ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS     PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 

MCMXIV 


COPYRIGHT.    1914.    BY    HARPER    a    BROTHERS 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF   AMERICA 
PUBLISHED    OCTOBER.     1914 

K-O 


TO 
LOUIS  WEISS  WYETH 

AND 

t        EUPHEMIA    ALLAN 

'my    boast    is    not   that    I    DEDUCE    MY    BIRTH 

FROM    LOINS    ENTHRONED    AND   RULERS    OF   THE    EARTH; 

BUT   HIGHER    STILL   MY    PROUD    PRETENSIONS    RISE, 

THE    SON    OF    PARENTS    PASSED    INTO   THE    SKIES." 

COWPER 


CONTENTS 

PART    I 

CHAP.  PAGE 

Introduction xiii 

I.  The  Tennessee  Valley — Marshall  County  and  Gunters- 

viLLE  IN  Alabama i 

II.  Early  Recollections 5 

III.  Our  Village  Boys 10 

IV.  Horse  and  Gun 14 

V.  Major,  the  Village  King — Lesson  from  the  Life  of  a  Xoele 


Dog 


23 


VI.  Early  Scenes,  Religious  and  Otherwise 30 

VII.  The  Aristocracy  of  the  Old  South 37 

VIII.  The  Negro  and  Slavery  in  the  Old  South 52 

IX.  The   Point   of   View — History  of   American   Slavery   and 

the  Abolition  Crusaders — Some  Truths  about  John 
Brown  and  the  So-called  Martyrdom 74 

X.  Some   Facts   about  John   Brown   Not   Generally   Known      94 

XI.  A  Dissertation  upon  the  Perversion  of  Facts— Sketches 

FROM  THE  Backwoods  of  Alabama — The  Grape-vine 
Telegraph  —  The  Liars'  Tournament  —  The  Sheriff's 
Story  of  "When  the  Yankees  First  Came"     ....     128 

XII.  The  Snakes  of  Northern  Alabama 147 

XIII.  My  Year  at  College — The  Gunboat  Incident 160 

XIV.  With  Morgan's  Cavalry — The  Christmas  Raid — 1862-1863     177 

XV.  Fourth  Alabama  Cavalry 197 

XVI.  Covering   the   Retreat   from   Tullahoma  —  The   27TH   of 

June,  1863       210 

vii 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XVII.  TULLAHOMA    TO    ALEXANDRIA — ElK    RiVER 223 

XVIII.  Chickamauga,  Where  the  Independence  of  the  Southern 

Confederacy  was  Won  and  Lost — The  Real  Crisis  of 
the  Civil  War 237 

XIX.  Sequatchie  Valley — Capture  of  the  Great  Wagon-train 

— A  Prisoner  of  War 265 

XX.  Prison  Life  in  Camp  Morton — Homeward  Bound — John 

Jones 286 

XXI.  After  the  War 313 

XXII.  A  Medical  Student  in  1867 — Three  Years  in  Arkansas 

— Steamboating  and  Contracting 327 

XXIII.  At   Bellevue   Medical   College  —  Work   in   the   Dis- 

secting -  ROOM  —  Assistant  Demonstrator  and  Pro- 
sector TO  the  Chair  of  Anatomy — Beginning  of  the 
Prize  Essays  in  Surgical  Anatomy  and  Surgery — The 
Study  of  Greek,  German,  and  French — 1 872-1 878  .    .    347 

XXIV.  London — Paris — Berlin — Vienna — Dr.  J.  Marion  Sims — 

Mt.  Sinai  Hospital — Text-book  on  Surgery — Presi- 
dent New  York  Pathological  Society  —  Bloodless 
Amputation  of  the  Shoulder  and  Hip  Joints — Vice- 
President  American  Medical  Association  —  Life  of 
Forrest 366 

XXV.  The  Tennessee  &  Coosa — How  I  Financed  a  Railroad 

and  Saved  a  Fortune  for  a  Friend — Revisit  My  Alma 
Mater — Write  the  Life  of  Forrest 381 

XXVI.  The  American  Medical  Association — The  Medical  So- 

ciety OF  THE  State  of  New  York  —  The  New  York 
State  Medical  Association 395 

XXVII.  Italy   and    the   Great    St.   Bernard — The    Bonaparte 

Trail — Marengo 399 

XXVIII.  Mind-reading  or  Thought-transference  —  The   Value 

OF  Suggestion — Christian  Science — The  Miracle  sat 
LouRDES — A  Mormon  Episode  and  Other  Experiences    414 

XXIX.  Right  handedness  or   Dextral  Preference  in  Man — 

Also  Some  Suggestions  as  to  the  Value  of  Enforced 

Ambidexterity 432 

viii 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XXX.  Occupations  of  a  Retired  Life  —  Building  the  New 
Polyclinic  Hospital  —  President  of  the  New  York 
Academy  of  Medicine  and  of  the  New  York  Southern 
Society  —  Chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Union  League  Club,  Etc 444 

PART    II 

I.  Founding  the  Polyclinic 461 

II.  Ligation  of  the  External  Carotid  Artery 467 

III.  Bloodless    Amputation    at    the    Hip  -  joint    and   at    the 

Shoulder 472 

IV.  The  Treatment  of  Vascular  Tumors  (Angiomata)  by  the 

Injection  into  Their  Substance  of  Water  at  a  High 
Temperature 480 

V.  Demonstration  by  Experimental  Studies  on  Animals  and 

BY  Operations  on  Human  Beings  of  the  Process  of 
Permanent  Arterial  Occlusion  after  Deligation     .    .    486 

VI.  Contribution  to  the  Study  of  the  Effect  of  Streptococ- 

cus and  Pyogenic  Infection  upon  Sarcoma 489 

VII.  The  Surgical  Anatomy  and  Surgery  of  the  Tibio-Tarsal 

Articulation,  with  Special  Reference  to  a  Modifica- 
tion OF  Syme's  Amputation 495 

VIII.  Transplanting  Skin  from  the  Abdomen  or  Other  Parts 

OF  the  Body  to  the  Hand  or  Forearm — Transferring 
the  Graft  by  This  Means  to  the  Face,  Neck,  or 
Elsewhere 4^8 

IX.  Contributions    to    the   Surgery   of   the    Mouth,    Naso- 

pharynx, and  Antrum  Maxillaris 502 

X.  Contributions  to  the  Surgery  of  the  Bones — Transplan- 

tation of  the  Proximal  End  of  the  Ulna  to  the  Distal 

OF  the  Radius  in  an  Ununited  Colles'  Fracture  .     .     .     509 

XI.  Hip-joint  Disease  Treated  by  Combination  of  Hutchinson's 

High  Shoe  and  Crutches  and  Sayre's  Long  Extension 
Splint 51^ 

XII.  Verses 520 

Genealogy 528 


INTRODUCTION 

The  chief  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  record  from  per- 
sonal observation  something  of  the  social,  economic,  and 
political  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the  South  before, 
during,  and  immediately  after  the  Civil  War.  It  was  my 
good  fortune  to  have  been  born  and  reared  in  a  section 
where  the  wealthy  landed  proprietors  and  slave-owners, 
the  poorer  whites,  and  the  negroes  came  together. 

What  is  written  of  the  delightful  society  of  the  aristoc- 
racy of  the  old  South  at  Huntsville  would  apply  to  hun- 
dreds of  other  communities  of  that  period  below  "the 
Line."  It  was  only  possible  with  the  institution  of  slavery, 
and  with  the  downfall  of  the  Southern  oHgarchy  it  disap- 
peared, never  to  be  repeated.  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madi- 
son, Marshall,  Wythe,  Monroe,  Mason,  the  Randolphs  and 
Lees  were  among  the  products  of  that  unique  civilization. 
"There  were  giants  in  those  days." 

In  my  native  county  the  poor  whites  greatly  outnumbered 
the  rich  slaveholders  and  their  slaves.  The  negroes  bap- 
tized them  contemptuously  as  "poor  white  trash."  They 
were  poor,  comparatively  speaking,  but  they  were  not  trash. 
The  vast  majority  were  uneducated,  many  could  not  read 
or  write;  but  they  were  as  a  class  far  from  being  ignorant, 
for  they  were  "good  Hsteners"  and  close  observers  of  cur- 
rent events.  My  father,  whom  they  made  at  first  county 
and  later  district  judge,  was  idolized  by  these  simple  people, 

xiii 


INTRODUCTION 

and  I  fell  heir  to  their  affectionate  guardianship.  By  the 
time  I  was  fifteen  years  old  I  believe  I  was  personally  ac- 
quainted with  every  one  of  these  families  in  our  county. 
Their  homes  were  chiefly  in  the  uplands  or  foot-hills  or 
coves  or  in  the  sparsely  settled  plateau  of  Sand  Mountain. 
The  houses  were  of  logs,  some  hewn,  many  of  skinned  poles, 
and  some  so  primitive  that  the  bark  was  left  on.  The  roofs 
were  of  rived  boards,  not  nailed,  but  held  in  place  by  split 
logs  laid  on  as  weights  and  reinforced  here  and  there  by 
stones.  Some  of  the  floors  were  of  puncheons,  others  of 
planks;  and  not  infrequently  the  kitchen,  smokehouse,  and 
other  added  shelters  had  for  flooring  the  sandy  earth.  As 
might  be  inferred,  their  lives  were  simple,  and  in  general 
they  were  obedient  to  law.  They  were,  however,  high- 
strung  and  quick  to  resent  an  affront,  and  their  too  ready 
appeal  to  the  rifle  and  the  hunting-knife  in  the  settlement 
of  personal  differences  was  the  chief  exception  to  their 
common  acceptance  of  the  authority  which  the  court-house 
represented.  Very  rarely,  far  back  in  some  remote  fast- 
ness, an  occasional  mountaineer,  who  gathered  inspiration 
from  the  sun  which  curved  over  his  head  each  day  without 
seeming  to  pay  much  attention  to  human  regulations,  or 
from  the  free  air  which  the  preacher  told  him  "bloweth 
where  it  listeth,"  would  conclude  that  the  government  at 
Washington  had  no  right  to  prescribe  in  what  form  the  com 
which  he  raised  with  his  own  hands  and  on  his  own  land 
should  ultimately  be  marketed,  and  would  proceed  to  distil 
it  into  whisky  by  the  light  of  the  moon.  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  feeling  which  was  evident  as  one  of  these  moun- 
taineers remarked  to  me:  "Your  pap  put  me  in  jail  once 
for  moonshinin',  but  I  never  blamed  him  fer  it.  We  all 
knowed  he  was  a  good  man  and  done  what  he  thought  was 

xiv 


INTRODUCTION 

right."  These  poor  whites  were  in  the  main  religious,  be- 
longing to  the  Baptist  or  Methodist  persuasions,  and  were 
much  given  to  "protracted  meetings,"  revivals,  and  ex- 
hortations to  secure  conversions,  which  latter  was  defined 
as  "comin'  through." 

They  dressed  with  extreme  simplicity,  usually  in  cotton 
or  woolen  stuffs,  raised,  spun,  woven,  and  tailored  at  home. 
The  mild  climate  made  it  possible  to  go  for  at  least  nine 
months  without  shoes,  and  the  one  pair  of  brogans  for  the 
year  was  usually  put  on  at  Christmas.  The  young  chil- 
dren and  boys  to  about  the  sixteenth  year  wore  in  summer- 
time nothing  but  a  single  garment  made  like  a  long  shirt, 
which  came  down  to  near  the  ankles  and  was  slit  on  each 
side  as  high  as  the  knees  to  allow  freedom  in  walking  or 
running.  As  they  raised  everything  they  ate,  except  sugar 
and  coffee,  it  may  well  be  said  that  their  wants  were  few 
and  easily  supplied. 

At  least  three-fourths  of  the  men  who  carried  guns  in  the 
battle-line  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  were  of  this  class. 
They  had  no  interest  directly  or  indirectl}^  in  slavery,  and 
would  willingly  have  seen  the  negroes  freed  and  colonized 
out  of  the  country.  The  proportion  of  non-slave-owners 
in  my  own  company  and  regiment  was  greater  than  seventy- 
five  per  cent.  Colonel  James  Cooper  Nesbit,^  in  his  most 
interesting  and  instructive  narrative,  says:  "My  company, 
H,  Twenty-first  Georgia  regiment,  was  recruited  in  north- 
west Georgia  and  Alabama.  The  muster-rolls  show  one 
hundred  and  eighty-five  names.  All  were  non-slaveholders 
except  myself.  The  parents  of  four  owned  one  or  two 
slaves,  and  the  father  of  one  of  my  lieutenants  owned  forty. 

^  Four  Years  on  the  Firing  Line,  p.  69.  Imperial  Press,  Chattanooga, 
Tenn.,  1914. 

XV 


INTRODUCTION 

This  was  the  average  of  the  Twenty-first  Georgia  and  the 
Twenty-first  North  Carolina  of  the  same  brigade,  and  these 
two  regiments  made  the  best  record  of  any  in  Stonewall 
Jackson's  corps." 

The  brave  fight  these  men  made  was  not  for  slavery. 
Their  contention  was  that  freemen  had  the  inherent  right 
to  do  as  they  pleased,  and  as  freemen  they  would  stay  in 
the  Union  or  secede,  as  the  majority  desired.  They  were 
then  and  are  still  clean-cut  Americans,  uncontaminated  by 
contact  or  association  with  the  restless,  poverty-stricken, 
and  discontented  hordes  of  immigrants  who  are  crowding 
our  shores  in  these  latter  days  either  as  anarchists,  who, 
like  shedding  snakes,  strike  blindly  and  viciously  at  every- 
thing which  moves,  or  like  the  socialists,  whose  aim  is  seem- 
ingly to  bring  all  human  endeavor  to  the  common  level  of 
mediocrity.  Should  the  safety  of  our  institutions  ever  be 
endangered  I  prophesy  that  these  men  of  the  foot-hills  and 
mountains  of  the  South  will  be  the  strongest  guarantee  of 
law  and  order. 

At  various  periods  in  history  (and  doubtless  before  the 
records  were  preserved,  for  in  his  natural  tendency  to  do 
foolish  things  on  a  large  scale  man  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  for  ever)  epidemics  of  insanity  have  appeared 
with  results  more  unfortunate  to  moral  and  intellectual 
development  than  have  followed  the  wide-spread  infections 
of  the  body. 

The  legend  of  the  Tower  of  Babel;  the  numerous  racial 
migrations ;  the  crusades  and  the  war  of  the  five  great  nations 
now  in  progress  in  Europe,  each  of  which,  claiming  to  repre- 
sent a  Christian  civilization,  is  calling  for  divine  assistance 
in  robbing  and  killing,  are  examples. 

One  such  epidemic  has  visited  our  shores.     In  the  agita- 

xvi 


INTRODUCTION 

tion  for  and  against  slavery  in  the  United  States,  reason  and 
conscience  were  finally  dominated  by  fanaticism.  There 
was  a  period  in  the  decade  from  1830  when  by  the  judicious 
co-operation  of  the  advocates  of  emancipation  North  and 
South  a  humane  and  practical  solution  of  this  momentous 
problem  was  possible.  I  ask  attention  to  the  fact  that  at 
this  time  there  were  in  the  eight  largely  agricultural  and 
slave-owning  counties  of  my  native  section  along  the  Ten- 
nessee River  in  Alabama  eight  active  emancipation  societies 
organized  by  Southern  men,  and  that  in  Huntsville  a  former 
slaveholder  edited  an  emancipation  newspaper  and  was 
twice  nominated  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States 
on  the  abolition  ticket;  also  to  the  fact  that  a  single  state 
freed  negroes  approximating  in  value  one  hundred  million 
dollars  without  one  penny  of  remuneration! 

I  am  firmly  convinced  that  if  instead  of  the  nagging,  irri- 
tating, insulting,  and  finally  insurrectionary  and  murderous 
meddlesomeness  of  the  Northern  abolitionists,  the  con- 
servative and  better  portion  had  united  in  earnest  and 
friendly  co-operation  with  their  brothers  of  the  South,  who 
proved  their  zeal  and  devotion  to  principle  by  the  whole- 
sale sacrifice  of  wealth  and  ease,  the  humane  scheme  of 
emancipation  and  colonization  as  set  forth  in  the  "Virginia 
Resolutions"  would  have  been  carried  out  and  chattel 
slavery  would  have  disappeared  by  peaceful  means. 

That  portion  of  the  volume  which  relates  to  the  Civil 
War  is  chiefly  a  narrative  of  the  every-day  life  of  a  private 
soldier  in  camp,  in  battle,  and  in  prison.  A  single  experi- 
ence— namely,  the  battle  of  Chickamauga — is  discussed  from 
the  standpoint  of  speculation.  In  my  opinion  the  Southern 
Confederacy  was  won  here  by  desperate  valor  and  lost  by 
the  failure  of  the  commanding  general  to  appreciate  the 

xvii 


INTRODUCTION 

magnitude  of  his  victory  and  to  take  advantage  of  the  great 
opportunity  which  was  his  for  the  capture  or  destruction  of 
the  entire  Union  army  in  Georgia  and  Tennessee.  Chicka- 
mauga,  as  I  interpret  it  from  personal  observation  and  from 
careful  study,  marked  the  high  tide  of  the  Confederacy. 

I  have  been  asked  to  describe  the  sensations  or  emotions 
which  are  experienced  under  the  trying  ordeal  of  battle. 
The  courage,  whether  moral  or  physical,  or  the  combina- 
tion of  both,  which  enables  a  human  being  to  incur  the  risk 
of  suffering  and  death  is  a  common  possession.  I  would 
guess  that  of  every  one  hundred  men  in  our  regiment  fully 
ninety-five  would  have  done,  or  would  have  tried  to  do, 
more  or  less  willingly,  any  duty  required.  The  other  five 
would  shirk  and  exhaust  ingenuity  to  keep  out  of  gunshot 
range  by  feigning  illness,  or  some  temporary  necessity,  or 
lagging  until  a  chance  offered  to  dodge  behind  an  obstacle 
whence  only  the  file-closers  could  drive  them  to  the  firing- 
line. 

In  very  rare  instances  the  sense  of  fear  became  so  over- 
whelming the  victim  would  run  away  without  regard  to  the 
commands  to  halt  and  the  danger  of  being  shot  in  the  back 
by  one's  own  men. 

Personally  I  never  saw  any  one  do  this,  but  it  did  occur. , 
The  very  unusual  experience  of  the  soldier  who,  when  what 
was  thought  to  be  a  dangerous  charge  was  ordered  and 
we  were  in  the  act  of  moving  forward,  stepped  from  the 
ranks  and  handed  his  gun  to  our  captain  and  said  he  couldn't 
"go  in"  is  given  in  the  text.  Vanity,  another  name  for 
which  is  "family  pride,"  or  the  dread  of  being  called  a  cow- 
ard, will  account  in  part  for  what  is  usually  accepted  as 
courage ;  and  yet  admitting  all  this  as  a  measure  of  human 
frailty,  I  have  witnessed  a  great  many  instances  of  that 

xviii 


INTRODUCTION 

sublime  quality  of  self-forgetfulness  in  the  performance  of 
duty  which  is  the  crystallization  of  virtue — namely,  true 
courage.  Appreciating,  as  every  normal  human  being  must, 
the  instinctive  dread  of  suffering  and  the  love  of  life,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  realize  the  awful  sensation  which  is  expe- 
rienced in  the  moments  given  for  reflection  as  one  marches 
calmly  up  to  the  point  of  danger.  It  must,  as  I  take  it, 
count  as  a  supreme  moment  in  existence.  Once  engaged 
and  in  the  excitement  of  fighting,  this  sense  of  impending 
disaster  is  happily  lost ;  and  to  some  there  comes  an  exhilara- 
tion which  it  would  be  almost  permissible  to  term  ecstatic. 

In  my  own  case,  in  the  first  two  or  three  minor  engage- 
ments I  was  not  scared ;  in  fact,  the  excitement  or  exhilara- 
tion was  rather  enjoyable;  but  this  was  "the  valor  of  igno- 
rance." After  I  had  learned  what  war  really  was  I  never 
went  under  fire  without  experiencing  an  overpowering  sense 
of  dread  and  fear,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  incident 
of  riding  through  the  Union  lines  at  Chickamauga,  which 
is  given  further  on. 

Part  II  is  devoted  mainly  to  my  work  as  a  surgeon  and 
teacher.  My  aim  has  been  to  collect  in  concise  form  for 
convenient  reference  those  original  contributions  which 
have  been  generally  accepted  by  the  profession. 

The  Ligation  of  the  External  Carotid  Artery  as  an  accepted 
procedure  dates  from  the  publication  of  my  essays  on  the 
arteries  by  the  American  Medical  Association  in  1878; 
the  Bloodless  Amputations  at  the  Hip- joint  and  at  the  Shoulder, 
in  1889;  The  Cure  of  Otherwise  Inoperable  Vascular  Tumors 
by  the  Injection  into  their  Substance  of  Water  at  a  High  Tem- 
perature; The  Immunizing  Effect  upon  Sarcoma  of  a  Mixed 
{Pyogenic)  Infection;  The  Demonstration  of  the  Process  of 
Arterial  Occlusion  after  Ligation  in  Continuity,  etc. 

xix 


INTRODUCTION 

Upon  these,  together  with  the  introduction  of  syste- 
matized postgraduate  medical  teaching  in  America,  the 
author  "rests  his  case"  at  the  bar  of  posterity.  That  the 
PolycHnic  gave  an  impetus  to  and  was  coincident  with 
the  great  awakening  in  American  medicine  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  Once  inaugurated,  the  movement  practically 
compelled  postgraduate  study  in  the  general  profession,  for 
it  naturally  followed,  that  when  even  a  single  practitioner  in 
any  community  took  advantage  of  the  extraordinary  facili- 
ties which  were  offered  for  increasing  his  store  of  knowledge, 
public  opinion,  that  insistent  vis  a  tergo  of  human  progress, 
compelled  the  others  to  follow.  Not  only  has  every  city 
of  importance  in  our  own  country  established  one  or  more 
postgraduate  medical  schools,  but  abroad  (as  in  London) 
our  system  has  been  adopted. 


PART    I 


WITH  SABRE  AND  SCALPEL 


THE   TENNESSEE  VALLEY — MARSHALL  COUNTY  AND   GUNTERS- 
VILLE    IN    ALABAMA 

Fifth  in  size  of  the  rivers  in  the  United  vStates,  the 
Tennessee,  rising  in  the  mountainous  regions  of  Virginia  and 
North  Carohna,  flows  in  a  general  direction  southwest  until, 
at  the  great  bend  in  northern  Alabama,  it  turns  northwest 
to  empty  into  the  Ohio.  Although  three-fourths  of  its 
course  is  within  the  boundaries  of  the  state  to  which  it  gave 
its  name,  that  section  of  the  South  widely  known  as  the 
Tennessee  Valley  is  wholly  within  the  state  of  Alabama. 

Eastward  and  to  the  north,  from  where  Lookout  stands 
sentinel  for  the  mighty  Appalachian  range,  the  numerous 
large  tributaries  fairly  divide  honors  with  the  main  stream, 
while  to  the  west,  after  pitching  over  the  great  cascade  at 
Mussel  Shoals,  it  leaves  the  mountains  and  the  picturesque 
valley  through  which  it  has  flowed  for  two  hundred  miles. 

Emerging  near  Chattanooga  from  the  narrow  gorge 
through  which  it  has  worn  its  way,  walled  in  by  cliffs  of 
stone  so  steep  and  high  that  from  the  channel  their  crests 
are  at  times  not  within  the  range  of  vision,  this  majestic 
river  enters  the  beautiful  Valley  of  the  Tennessee. 

Winding  in  and  out  among  the  mountains  on  either  hand, 

I 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

some  near,  some  far,  for  most  of  the  year  covered  with  ver- 
dure to  the  steep  cliffs  which  form  their  crests,  opening  here 
and  there  into  fertile  plains  or  densely  timbered  coves  that  rise 
as  they  recede  to  reach  the  summit  of  the  distant  heights,  on 
past  bold  projecting  bluffs  which  seem  to  block  the  way,  wide 
fields  of  com  and  grain  and  cotton  which  long  before  the 
frosts  of  winter  fall  shall  be  as  white  as  snow  upon  the 
arctic  plains,  flows  ever  on  this  gracious  gift  of  nature,  bless- 
ing with  plenty  my  native  Valley  of  the  Tennessee. 

In  1802  the  territory  now  included  in  the  states  of  Missis- 
sippi and  Alabama  was  ceded  by  Georgia  to  the  United 
States,  and  in  18 19  Alabama  was  admitted  to  the  Union. 
That  portion  of  this  new  state  lying  north  of  the  river 
had  been  opened  for  settlement  a  number  of  years,  while 
to  the  south  stretched  the  reservations  of  three  great 
Indian  tribes — the  Seminoles,  nearest  the  Gulf  of  Mexico; 
then  the  restless,  warring  Creeks,  and,  closest  in  touch  with 
civilization,  the  wonderful  Cherokees.  Lovers  of  peace  and 
tactful,  they  were  on  living  terms  not  only  with  their  war- 
like brothers,  but  friendly  also  with  their  Anglo-Saxon 
neighbors  just  across  the  Tennessee.  Builders  of  houses 
and  tillers  of  the  soil,  these  Indians  had  made  such  progress 
toward  civilization  that  they  had  in  use  a  syllabic  alphabet 
and  a  method  of  printing.  Invented  by  Sequoyah,^  this 
alphabet  of  eighty-five  characters,  each  representing  a  single 
sound  of  their  language,  is  pronounced  by  a  writer  in  the 
American  Encyclopedia  to  be  the  "most  perfect  alphabet 
ever  devised  for  any  language." 

While  the  Cherokees  could  not  hold  the  Creeks  and 
Seminoles  to  peaceful  ways,  they  would  not  allow  them  to 

*  This  remarkable  man  died  in  1843.  It  was  with  this  tribe  that  Sana 
Houston  lived  before  and  after  he  became  Governor  of  Tennessee. 


o  ^ 

2-  o 

fT  o 

•  o 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

pass  through  their  domain  to  harrow  the  white  settlers  north 
of  the  Tennessee.  The  massacre  at  Fort  Mims,  Alabama, 
on  August  30,  1 8 13,  where  four  hundred  men,  women,  and 
children  were  butchered,  led  to  the  annihilation  of  the  Creek 
Nation  at  the  battle  of  the  Horseshoe  Bend  on  the  Talla- 
poosa in  1 8 14,  while  the  remnant  of  their  allies,  the  Semi- 
noles,  sought  refuge  in  the  impenetrable  marshes  of  the 
everglades  in  Florida,  where  they  still  survive.  For  twenty- 
four  years  longer  the  Cherokees  lingered  in  their  native  land, 
until  by  treaty  in  1836  they  marched  to  the  West,  and  their 
former  reservation  was  opened  for  settlers. 

When  from  a  part  of  this  Indian  land  the  new  county  of 
Marshall  was  formed,  Louis  Wyeth,  a  young  lawyer,  jour- 
neying by  stage  from  Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania,  to  Pitts- 
burg, by  steamboat  down  the  Ohio  to  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
thence  by  stage  to  Huntsville,  Alabama,  and  on  foot  for 
the  remainder  of  the  way  (for  as  yet  there  were  only  trails 
in  the  Cherokee  purchase) ,  came  to  cast  his  lot  with  the 
other  pioneers  and  to  "grow  up  with  the  country." 

He  must  have  taken  well  with  these  men  of  the  wilder- 
ness, for  they  made  him  their  county  judge  within  the  first 
years  of  his  advent;  and,  although  he  did  not  long  remain 
on  the  bench — for  he  sought  a  wider  field — it  may  truth- 
fully be  said  that  throughout  a  long  and  useful  career  he 
judged  these,  his  people,  to  whose  welfare  he  devoted  his 
life.  In  1848  he  founded  the  town  of  Guntersville  at  the 
south  bend  of  the  Tennessee,  built  at  his  private  expense  a 
handsome  brick  court  -  house  and  a  well  -  appointed  jail, 
which  were  his  gift  s  to  the  county  and  the  new  town,  which 
became  and  still  is  the  county- seat.  As  a  member  of  the 
state  legislature  he  secured  a  charter  for  a  railroad  "to 
connect  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Tennessee  and  Coosa 

3 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

rivers,  with  the  object  of  securing  an  inland  system  of  trans- 
portation between  Mobile  Bay  and  the  vast  rich  region 
through  which  flowed  the  Tennessee  and  its  tributaries." 
Of  this  railroad,  which  is  now  a  part  of  the  great  Nashville 
&  Chattanooga  and  Louisville  &  Nashville  railroad  systems, 
he  was  the  originator  and  first  president. 


II 

EARLY    RECOLLECTIONS 

It  would  be  interesting  to  determine  just  when  the  brain- 
cells  begin  to  register  impressions  that  become  fixed  and 
are  subject  to  the  call  of  memory;  and  also  with  which  of 
the  senses  these  early  registrations  are  associated.  The 
brain  is  such  an  unreliable  machine  that  the  results  of  its 
operations  require  careful  study  and  critical  analysis  before 
acceptance.  Since  older  minds  (which  are  considered  ma- 
ture) are  known  to  entertain  absolutely  impossible  schemes 
as  fixed  convictions,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  children 
are  readily  susceptible  to  self-deception.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  many  incidents  retold  as  being  the  recollections  of 
early  childhood  are  nothing  more  than  reflected  images  of 
word-pictures  from  older  persons  who  really  were  witnesses. 
Only  to-day  a  woman  of  more  than  ordinary  brilliancy  and 
of  unquestionable  sincerity  assured  me  she  remembered 
distinctly  being  held  as  a  baby  in  her  grandmother's  arms 
when  she  was  only  a  httle  more  than  one  year  old! 

It  occurs  to  me  that  since  children  are  almost  wholly 
animal,  their  earlier  brain-cell  registrations  should  be  as- 
sociated with  alimentation,  and  with  those  to  whose  per- 
sonal ministrations  they  looked  for  comfort  and  protection. 
It  would  seem  but  natiiral  that  one's  mother  should  come 
first  of  all  things;  but  with  myself,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  this 
is  not  the  case.  I  was  four  years  old  when  my  memory  of 
things  began;  and  my  mother,  who,  as  I  now  know,  did  little 

5 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

else  but  devote  her  time  and  thoughtful  care  to  me,  does  not 
hold  this  precedence.  My  earliest  recollection  is  of  a  burn- 
ing house,  and  of  Mack,  one  of  our  slaves,  holding  me  seated 
on  one  of  the  front  gate-posts,  where  I  could  have  a  good 
view  of  the  conflagration.  The  date  of  this  incident  is 
known,  and  it  enables  me  to  determine  that  my  brain-cells 
were  not  registering  fixed  impressions  earlier  than  the  fourth 
year.  About  this  time  I  first  straddled  a  horse  and  tumbled 
off,  and  that  incident  was  indelibly  impressed,  as  was  a 
relation  thus  early  established  with  Aunt  Peggy,  our  negro 
cook,  whereby  without  the  knowledge  of  my  mother,  at 
about  ten  o'clock  every  morning  I  found  myself  in  the 
kitchen  eating  from  a  small  wooden  tray  corn-bread  crusts 
soaked  in  "pot-liquor,"  a  very  filling,  greasy,  and  satisfying 
mixture,  which,  I  learned  later,  was  a  common  food  of  the 
negro  children  of  the  plantations. 

It  is  clear,  then,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  that  the  very 
first  enduring  impression  was  conveyed  to  the  cells  from  the 
retina,  through  the  so-called  "sense  of  sight."  The  second 
was  from  fright,  and  fused  with  this  is  another  impression 
which  seems  to  indicate  that  the  mind  was  commencing 
operations  from  within  on  its  own  responsibility.  I  very 
distinctly  remember  that  as  I  was  sliding  off  the  bare  back 
of  the  horse  and  was  about  half-way  to  the  ground  my  good 
guardian  Mack  caught  me  and  placed  me  again  in  position. 
Being  scared,  I  asked  him  to  let  me  get  off  and  walk,  but  he 
was  as  inexorable  as  the  law  of  gravitation.  There  was  no 
getting  out  of  it.  I  had  to  learn,  and  did  learn,  and  from 
that  time  on  I  almost  lived  on  horseback.  This  lovable 
slave  not  only  taught  me  to  ride,  but  he  gave  me  a  first 
lesson  of  inestimable  value,  which  was,  not  to  get  scared  and 
quit.     The  third  registration,  which,  according  to  the  "ani- 

6 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

mal  theory"  just  expressed,  should  have  come  first,  was  evi- 
dently conveyed  through  the  "sense  of  taste,"  or  hunger. 
Now,  the  one — to  me — incomprehensible  feature  of  this 
retrospection  is  that  up  to  this  period,  and  even  later,  I 
have  not  the  slightest  recollection  of  my  parents.  I  was  on 
excellent  terms  with  the  cook,  and  between  Mack  and  his 
ward  there  was  established  an  affectionate  association  which 
had  already  a  fixed  place  and  never  ceased;  in  fact,  grew  so 
strong  as  time  went  on  that  I  never  wanted  to  be  away  from 
him  in  daylight. 

At  five  years  of  age  I  was  taken  to  school ;  and  here  again 
fright  comes  in,  for  I  doubt  if  any  wretch  riding  toward  the 
guillotine  ever  suffered  more  than  did  this  victim  of  civiliza- 
tion on  this  occasion.  The  teacher  who  preceded  the  pres- 
ent incumbent  had  not  spared  the  rod;  in  fact,  had  whipped 
two  of  his  boy  pupils  so  severely  that  his  services  were  dis- 
pensed with.  Hearing  all  this  from  the  older  children,  I 
supposed  I  would  come  in  for  my  share  from  the  new  man, 
who  was  "part  Cherokee."  ^ 

"Mr.  Dave"  was,  however,  a  mild-mannered  man,  and, 
while  he  kept  a  long  hickory  switch  in  the  chimney  corner 
near  his  chair,  it  was  only  a  reminder  of  the  possibiHties 
which  might  follow  bad  behavior.  The  worst  he  ever  did 
was  to  "thump"  us  on  the  head  with  the  last  knuckle  of 
one  finger,  and  usually  we  got  this  punishment  for  mis- 
spelHng  a  word  or  for  some  shortcoming  in  our  studies. 
My  first,  and  I  believe  only,  experience  came  within  a  day 
or  two  after  I  began.  The  spelling-class  stood  in  a  row  be- 
hind one  of  the  long  benches.  When  a  word  went  wrong, 
in  order  to  have  the  correction  indelibly  impressed  on  our 

*  Descended  from  intermarriage  between  a  Cherokee  Indian  and  a  white 
person. 

7 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

minds  the  culprit  had  to  walk  to  where  the  teacher  sat, 
project  his  small  head  in  advance  of  the  perpendicular,  and 
receive  thereon  a  thump  which  was  light  or  heavy  in  pro- 
portion to  the  gravity  of  the  error.  My  offense  was  ' '  separa- 
tion," and  from  that  day  to  this  I  have  never  forgotten  that 
it  is  dangerous  to  change  the  first  "a"  of  the  word  into  "e." 
I  had  been  at  school  for  some  time,  and  was  well  turned 
into  my  seventh  year,  when  on  one  memorable  day  I  made 
a  discovery  which  was  worth  more  to  me  than  the  finding  of 
a  new  world  was  to  Columbus.  I  discovered  my  mother,  and 
incidentally  began  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  I  had  a  father, 
although  at  this  early  period  he  occupied  a  position,  to  my 
vision,  very  much '  nearer  the  horizon  than  did  my  new- 
ly discovered  planet.  The  discovery  came  about  in  this 
fashion:  a  boy  playmate  lost  his  temper  at  something  that 
happened  between  us,  and  in  anger  gave  me  a  slap  which 
I  did  not  resent.  At  this  juncture  I  heard  a  voice  from  a 
near-by  window,  and,  turning,  I  saw  my  mother  leaning  out, 
her  eyes  flashing  so  that  I  could  almost  see  the  sparks  flying 
and  her  cheeks  as  red  as  fire.  In  a  tone  about  which  there 
could  be  no  misinterpretation,  even  by  one  who  instinctive- 
ly preferred  peace  to  war,  she  asked  me  if  the  boy  struck 
me  in  anger;  and  when  I  told  her  he  had,  she  blazed  up  and 
said,  "And  you  didn't  hit  him  back?"  My  response  was 
that  father  had  told  me  it  was  wrong  to  fight,  and  that  when 
another  boy  gave  way  to  anger  just  to  tell  him  it  was  wrong 
and  not  fight  back.  At  this  the  blue  bonnet  of  Clan- 
Allan  went  "over  the  border,"  and  she  fairly  screamed: 
"I  don't  care  what  your  father  told  you;  if  you  don't  whip 
that  boy  this  minute  I'll  whip  you!"  And  she  looked  on, 
and  was  satisfied  when  it  was  all  over.  I  date  my  career  from 
that  eventful  day;  for  I  had  come  to  the  parting  of  the  ways. 

8 


.  <    ^ 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

No  one  who  knew  my  father  ever  doubted  his  physical 
or  moral  courage,  for  it  was  of  that  sublime  type  that  held 
life  as  of  secondary  consideration  where  duty  was  involved, 
but  his  was  the  gift  of  gentle  forbearance  and  kindly  re- 
monstrance to  those  who  gave  way  to  ungovernable  and 
passionate  word  or  deed.  His  was  the  way  of  the  Nazarene 
and  of  that  far-reaching  wisdom  of  which  the  Proverb  says : 
"Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  her  paths  are 
peace." 

My  mother,  too,  was  a  Presbyterian,  the  daughter  of  a 
minister  of  that  faith,  tender  and  true  to  her  convictions  of 
duty.  Peter  didn't  love  his  Lord  any  less  because  he  was 
human  enough  to  lose  his  temper  and  smite  off  the  ear  of 
the  servant  of  the  high  priest.  My  mother  and  I  chose  him 
for  our  patron  saint,  and,  turning  aside  from  the  path  of 
peace,  hand  in  hand  we  trod  the  rougher  road  which  led 
up  the  hill  Difficulty.  Upon  its  summit  we  stood  at  last 
triumphant,  and  thence,  her  beautiful  face  lighted  up  with 
a  heavenly  smile,  an  eternal  benediction,  she  left  me  and 
passed  down  into  the  valley. 

Time  but  the  impression  stronger  makes, 
As  streams  their  channels  deeper  wear. 

It  was  on  one  of  her  later  birthdays  I  wrote : 

Deal  gently  with  her,  Time!     These  many  years 

Of  hfe  have  brought  more  smiles  with  them  than  tears. 

Lay  not  thy  hand  too  harshly  on  her  now, 

But  trace  decUne  so  slowly  on  her  brow 

That,  like  a  sunset  of  the  northern  clime. 

Where  twilight  lingers  in  the  summer-time, 

And  fades  at  last  into  the  silent  night, 

Ere  one  may  note  the  passing  of  the  Hght, 

So  may  she  pass — since  'tis  the  common  lot — 

As  one  who,  resting,  sleeps  and  knows  it  not.  - 

— Century  Magazine,  January,  1902. 
2 


Ill 

OUR   VILLAGE    BOYS 

Boys  are  boys  the  world  over,  and  we  were  boys;  some 
good,  some  bad.  None  good  all  the  time;  none  so  bad  but 
that  if  properly  handled  the  germ  of  good  in  him  could  have 
been  cultivated  to  an  aspiration  for  the  ideals  of  life  and  for 
usefulness.  It  is  almost  a  maxim  that  children  are  what 
their  parents  make  them.  Even  the  influences  of  hered- 
ity may  in  large  measure  be  eliminated  if  carefully  studied 
and  the  value  of  environment  appreciated,  for  children,  like 
chameleons,  take  readily  the  color  of  that  which  is  about 
them.  A  left-handed  child,  or  even  an  adult  with  a  strong- 
ly inherited  tendency  to  use  the  off-hand,  may  be  made  just 
as  clever  with  the  opposite  and  unpref erred  member  by  per- 
sistent training.  This  has  been  very  frequently  demon- 
strated. It  is  just  as  possible  to  make  both  members 
equally  useful.  This  will  be  done  in  the  years  to  come,  and 
it  will  greatly  increase  both  mental  and  muscular  efficiency. 
What  is  true  of  a  physical  defect  or  deviation  from  the  nor- 
mal is  just  as  true  of  a  moral  weakness.  No  one  doubts 
that  Ashanti  infants  transplanted  to  a  Christian  civili- 
zation and  reared  with  refined  and  cultivated  children 
would  cease  to  be  cannibals  and  savages.  The  domestica- 
tion of  wild  animals  and  fowls  is  complete  evidence  of  the 
influence  of  environment. 

Among  the  boys  of  our  village  very  few  turned  out  bad ; 

lO 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  had  these  few  been  surrounded  in  their  homes  by  better 
example  and  received  more  kindly  consideration  and  en- 
couragement, even  they  would  not  have  fallen  by  the  way. 
Fully  fifty  per  cent,  of  my  playmates  near  my  age  perished 
in  battle  or  from  wounds  or  sickness  contracted  in  the  mili- 
tary service  of  the  Confederacy.  Most  of  our  time  up  to 
our  fifteenth  year,  when  as  a  rule  we  were  sent  away  to  one 
of  the  well-known  colleges,  was  spent  in  the  long  sessions 
of  the  village  school  with  its  exacting  duties.  A  week  at 
Christmas  and  the  months  of  July  and  August  made  up 
the  vacation  period.  On  holidays  in  the  fall  and  winter 
months,  when  the  river  and  creeks  and  forests  were  flush 
with  game,  we  were  hunters  and  became  adepts  in  wood- 
craft and  the  use  of  firearms.  Often  on  Saturday  nights, 
in  the  colder  season,  with  the  young  negro  boys,  toward 
whom  we  white  boys  were  always  kind  and  considerate, 
with  pine  torch-lights  and  our  dogs,  we  would  roam  the 
heavily  timbered  bottom  lands  hunting  possums  and  coons, 
and  at  times  on  moonlight  nights  take  our  shotguns  and 
seek  out  the  wild-turkey  roosts.  With  the  full  moon  on 
cloudless  nights  we  could  even  shoot  turkeys,  coons,  and 
possums  from  the  trees  with  the  rifles,  which  carried  only  one 
ball.  It  was  the  practice  to  get  the  dark  object  between 
the  marksman  and  the  bright  moon,  sight  into  the  moon, 
and  slowly  lower  the  barrel  until  both  sights  were  darkened 
by  the  intervening  black  object,  and  at  this  moment  touch 
the  trigger.  We  were  at  home  on  horseback,  and  in  the 
very  warm  days  of  the  long  summers  we  almost  lived  in  the 
river,  the  temperature  of  which  was  several  degrees  warmer 
than  the  cold  water  which  came  in  from  the  near-by  moun- 
tain streams.  Few  of  us  could  remember  when  we  learned 
to  swim,  and  the  practice  was  general.     No  one  seemed 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

afraid  of  the  water,  nor  was  there  ever  a  death  by  drown- 
ing. I  recall  that  one  day  in  the  late  spring,  when  the 
water  in  the  river  was  still  cold  from  the  melting  snows 
in  the  Virginia  mountains,  and  it  was  nearly  to  the  top  of 
the  banks,  five  of  our  group  deposited  our  scant  wardrobes, 
which  consisted  of  trousers,  shirt,  and  hat  (no  one  wore  shoes 
in  warm  weather),  in  the  hollov/  of  a  giant  sycamore  and 
swam  across  the  Tennessee  and  back  for  the  frolic  of  it.  In 
going  the  six  hundred  yards  across  the  strong  current  we 
were  carried  fully  a  mile  below  the  starting-point,  and  in 
returning  we  were  compelled  to  walk  far  enough  up  the 
river-bank  to  offset  the  force  of  the  current. 

Life  was  not  by  any  means  all  play  and  school  with 
us.  It  was  the  custom  with  both  rich  and  poor  for  every 
boy  to  do  a  certain  amount  of  manual  labor,  plowing  or 
other  work  in  the  garden,  or  chopping  wood  or  hauling. 
The  wealthiest  planter  in  our  county  insisted  that  his 
sons  work  in  the  fields  with  his  slaves  a  certain  number 
of  days  each  crop  season.  In  one  year  I  raised  unaided 
a  ten-acre  field  of  com.  It  was  a  wholesome  custom,  for 
it  instilled  in  our  minds  an  appreciation  of  the  dignity  and 
value  of  labor  and  made  us  acquainted  with  the  use  of 
various  implements.  My  father  refused  to  give  me  even 
the  small  "  spending-money "  a  boy  is  supposed  to  be  al- 
lowed, but  he  gave  me  every  opportunity  to  earn  what  I 
needed  by  my  own  efforts.  My  chief  source  of  revenue  was 
cutting  wood  in  the  forests  near  town  which  belonged  to 
him,  and  hauling  and  selling  it  by  the  wagon-load  to  my 
various  regular  customers.  With  the  money  so  earned  I 
became  an  early  subscriber  to  Harper's  Magazine  and  Har- 
per's Weekly.  One  of  the  family  treasures  which  was  lost 
when  the  Union  soldiers  burned  our  home  was  a  much-appre- 

12 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ciated  personal  letter  to  me  from  one  of  the  original  ' '  Broth- 
ers" who  founded  the  great  "House  of  Harper."  Thack- 
eray and  "Porte  Crayon"  were  contributors  to  the  Magazine 
then,  and  in  the  Weekly  were  appearing  the  illustrations  of 
the  Sepoy  Rebellion  in  India. 

Thoughtful  care  was  always  given  the  selection  of  our 
teachers,  and  our  community  was  fortunate  in  securing  the 
services  of  Professor  W.  D.  Lovett,  of  Zanesville,  Ohio,  a 
college  graduate,  well  versed  in  the  classics,  an  excellent 
mathematician,  patient,  insistent,  and  conscientious  in  the 
discharge  of  his  duty.  He  was  to  me  teacher  and  friend, 
and  with  his  encouraging  help  and  that  of  my  father,  him- 
self at  home  with  the  classics,  I  was  able  in  my  fifteenth 
year  to  pass  my  college  entrance  examinations  and  matricu- 
late at  La  Grange  Military  Academy  in  January,  1861. 


IV 

HORSE    AND   GUN 

The  boy  of  the  old  South  learned  to  ride  and  to  shoot 
almost  as  soon  as  he  learned  to  walk.*  I  began  to  ride  when 
I  was  only  four  years  old,  and  at  ten  was  the  possessor  of 
my  own  horse  and  gun.  A  saddle  was  not  permitted  to 
beginners.  Stirrups  were  dangerous  entanglements,  and 
when  we  grew  up  to  the  saddle  our  stirrups  had  leather 
guards  to  prevent  the  ankle  from  slipping  through  and 
hanging.  A  blanket  fastened  on  with  a  surcingle  was  the 
favorite  seat.  For  years  before  I  was  big  enough  to  get  on 
a  horse  without  sidling  up  to  a  stump  or  a  fence  I  rode  to 
the  creek  to  water  my  horse,  or  straddled  an  evenly  balanced 
sack  of  shelled  corn  and  made  the  trip  twice  a  week  to  the 
water-mill  a  mile  away. 

I  had  also  good  practice  in  "riding  behind"  one  or  the 
other  of  my  parents,  for  the  newness  of  the  country  and  the 
absence  of  good  roads  made  the  use  of  buggies  or  carriages 
practically  impossible  and  horseback  the  one  reliable  way 
of  traveling  or  of  visiting  our  neighbors. 

My  first  gun  was  a  flint-lock  rifle  of  the  same  death-dealing 

^  The  girls  of  the  South  in  my  day  were  equally  at  home  on  horseback. 
Both  of  my  sisters  owned  their  saddle-horses,  were  fearless  riders,  and  were 
expert  with  gun  and  pistol.  On  one  occasion  during  the  war,  while  all  the 
men-folk  were  absent  from  the  plantation  in  Lee  County,  Georgia,  the  negroes 
came  running  in  great  consternation  to  tell  my  eldest  sister  that  a  huge  alli- 
gator was  eating  the  pigs  at  the  bam  down  near  the  lake.  With  an  accurate 
shot  through  the  eye  she  killed  the  monster,  which  was  over  six  feet  in  length. 

14 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

pattern  as  those  used  by  the  backwoodsmen  of  Jackson  and 
Coffee  on  Wellington's  Peninsular  veterans  at  New  Orleans. 
It  was  a  dangerous  weapon  at  the  muzzle,  and  not  altogether 
harmless  at  the  other  end.  I  could  never  entirely  overcome 
the  sense  of  nervousness  at  the  flash  of  the  powder  in  the 
priming-pan  within  a  few  inches  of  the  eye.  The  bullet 
used  was  molded  from  bars  of  lead  kept  in  stock  at  all 
frontier  stores.  The  ball  was  laid  in  the  palm  of  the  hand, 
and  the  proper  charge  of  powder  was  measured  by  pouring 
enough  to  make  a  pyramid  which  just  concealed  it.  The 
powder  was  then  poured  into  the  muzzle  of  the  barrel  held 
perpendicularly.  A  bit  of  thick  cotton  cloth  greased  with 
tallow  on  the  under  side  was  laid  over  the  muzzle,  and  the 
ball,  placed  on  this,  was  pushed  in  until  its  top  was  level  with 
the  surface  of  the  barrel,  when  the  patch  was  cut  smoothly 
across  with  a  sharp  knife.  Incased  in  this  lubricated  cloth 
envelope,  the  bullet  was  pushed  down  upon  the  charge  of 
measured  powder  near  the  touch-hole  by  means  of  a  long, 
slender  ramrod  of  tough  hickory.  The  priming-pan  was 
next  opened  and  filled  with  powder,  and  the  "striker" 
closed.  The  flint  was  so  arranged  that  when  the  hammer 
was  cocked  and  the  trigger  pressed  a  spring  drove  the  flint 
against  the  striker  and  primer,  forcing  it  open,  and  thus 
bringing  the  powder  in  the  pan  in  contact  with  the  igniting 
spark.  These  guns,  now  obsolete,  soon  gave  way  to  those 
equipped  with  tubes  for  percussion-caps,  and  these  in  turn 
to  our  modern  breech-loaders  with  percussion-cartridges. 

This  early  training  to  horse  and  gun  will  explain  why  the 
mounted  troops  of  the  Confederacy  for  the  first  two  years 
of  the  Civil  War  were  notably  superior  to  the  cavalry  of 
the  North.  For  the  third  year  honors  were  about  even, 
and  after  that  to  the  end  the  advantage  was  on  the  Union 

15 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

side.  It  took  the  Federal  cavalrymen  about  two  years  to 
become  expert  riders  and  marksmen,  and  as  such  they  held 
their  own  with  their  opponents.  By  1864,  when  the  South 
was  depleted  of  live  stock,  the  impossibility  of  securing 
good  mounts  or  of  maintaining  the  efficiency  of  those  in 
service  placed  its  cavalry  at  great  disadvantage;  and  when 
to  the  best  of  horses  and  seasoned  veterans  was  added  the 
equipment  with  the  repeating-rifle,  as  against  the  single- 
barreled  muzzle-loader  of  the  Confederates,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  the  men  who  had  followed  Forrest  and  Wheeler  and 
Stuart  and  Morgan  to  victory  on  practically  every  battle- 
field in  the  earlier  campaigns  could  no  longer  successfully 
resist  the  gallant  troopers  of  Wilson  and  Sheridan. 

The  hunting-season  in  the  South  began  in  the  early 
autumn  and  lasted  until  March.  In  the  wide  ranges  of 
uncleared  woodland  in  the  near-by  mountains,  and  in  the 
dense  cane-brakes  which  grew  in  the  rich  bottom  land  of 
the  Tennessee,  there  were  wild  deer  and  turkeys  in  great 
numbers  throughout  the  year.  I  counted  more  than  twenty 
of  the  beautiful  animals  in  one  herd  within  three  miles  of 
our  village,  and  I  have  killed  turkeys  feeding  in  the  fields 
and  truck-gardens  of  our  home.  So  plentiful  were  they  at 
one  time  that  during  the  breeding-season  I  have  often 
heard,  as  I  sat  on  our  portico,  the  drumming  sound  made 
by  the  wings  of  the  males  when  strutting.  Squirrels,  rab- 
bits, raccoons,  and  opossums  were  abundant,  while  beavers, 
muskrats,  and  minks  made  their  homes  in  the  river's  bank. 
Wild  duck  and  geese  came  with  the  cold  weather  and  re- 
mained until  spring.  Of  the  migrating  birds  the  wild 
pigeon  was  at  once  the  most  beautiful  and  wonderful.  The 
story  of  these  birds  will  seem  in  this  day  like  a  gross  exag- 
geration, and  yet  there  are  many  persons  still  living  who  saw, 

i6 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

as  I  have  seen,  the  vast  and  countless  flocks  of  these  swift 
and  graceful  birds  of  passage  as  they  whirred  through  the 
air  on  their  southward  flight,  so  massed  that  they  cast  a 
shadow  Hke  a  thick  cloud  which  shut  out  the  sun,  while  the 
noise  of  their  countless  wings  sounded  like  the  roar  of  an 
approaching  cyclone.  As  far  as  the  eye  could  distinguish 
them  their  lines  were  stretched,  and  one  flock  would  scarcely 
be  out  of  sight  before  another  followed.  A  favorite  feeding- 
ground  was  the  beech  forest  near  our  home,  and  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  sights  I  have  ever  beheld  was  the  sudden 
and  almost  perpendicular  descent  of  a  vast  army  of  these 
birds  from  a  height  of  at  least  a  mile  to  the  tree-tops  in 
the  bottom  lands.  They  simply  let  go,  fell  like  snowflakes 
from  the  heavens,  and  alighted  in  such  numbers  that  the 
limbs  broke  beneath  the  great  weight.  When  the  nuts  were 
all  consumed,  or  threshed  off  by  the  motion  of  their  wings, 
the  birds  would  swarm  to  the  ground,  many  of  them  lost 
to  sight  in  the  foot-deep  leaves  which  carpeted  the  earth 
beneath  these  giant  trees.  My  father  and  I  on  one  occasion 
picked  up  twenty-five  pigeons  killed  by  a  single  volley  of 
our  two  shotguns — his  a  double,  mine  a  single  barreled 
gun.  I  have  no  idea  of  the  cause  of  their  disappearance; 
but  they,  like  the  buffalo,  are  now  practically  extinct.  As 
late  as  1870  I  saw  them  in  the  White  River  section  of  Ar- 
kansas, as  plentiful  as  they  had  been  before  the  war  in 
Northern  Alabama.  I  am  informed  by  a  close  student  of 
ornithology  that  a  reward  of  $5,000  for  a  pair  of  these  birds 
has  for  three  years  remained  unclaimed. 

In  the  cane-brakes  and  thickly  wooded  regions  we  hunted 
chiefly  on  foot,  but  for  deer  and  turkey  and  for  shooting 
quail,  the  horse  was  in  common  use,  while  for  the  rare 
sport   of  fox-hunting    the   gun   was    discarded,   and    the 

17 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

swift  horses  kept  the  hunters  always  close  up  with  the 
hounds. 

When  I  became  the  owner  of  a  saddle-horse  it  was  my 
duty  to  feed  and  curry  and  take  personal  care  of  my  mount ; 
and  so  when  the  war  came  on,  and  I  rode  away  on  my 
beautiful  Fanny,  we  knew  each  other  thoroughly  and  were 
as  comrades  in  all  the  exciting  scenes,  the  times  of  danger 
in  battle  and  of  trial,  with  long  marches  and  short  rations, 
and  all  the  hardships  of  an  active  cavalry  service.  Horses 
are  not  unlike  their  two-legged  masters  in  the  variations  of 
character  and  quality;  and  a  well-bred  animal  feels  and 
shows  its  distinction  and  superiority  over  a  common  plug 
as  does  the  man  of  gentle  breeding  exhibit  certain  qualities 
that  mark  him  as  not  of  the  common  run.  Fanny  was 
not  only  the  most  beautifully  formed  horse  I  have  ever 
seen,  but  she  possessed  an  intelligence  almost  human  and 
could  be  trusted  in  any  emergency.  A  whip  or  spur  she 
would  not  tolerate.  I  could  ride  and  guide  her  anywhere 
without  saddle  or  bridle.  A  word,  a  motion  of  the  hand, 
or  a  slight  inclination  of  the  body  gave  to  her  quick  per- 
ception the  direction  and  the  gait.  If  the  saddle  was  not 
comfortably  adjusted  she  would  stop  and  back  one  ear  or 
the  other  to  tell  me  where  it  pinched. 

I  trained  her  to  a  running- walk,  at  once  the  easiest  stride 
for  horse  and  rider,  and  day  after  day  she  has  averaged 
forty  miles  over  roads  and  trails  not  easy  as  to  going.  I  rode 
her  twice  from  my  home  to  Rome,  in  Georgia,  seventy-five 
miles,  in  a  day  and  a  half.  When  it  came  to  running  she 
was  like  the  wind,  and  in  the  long  speeding  to  safety  in  our 
scouting  expeditions,  when  speed  needed  stamina  to  make 
the  goal  of  the  picket -line,  she  showed  her  mettle.  As  long 
as  I  rode  this  graceful,  coal-black  creature — unmarked  save 

i8 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

for  a  white  star  in  the  center  of  the  forehead  and  a  white 
ring  on  the  nigh  hind  pastern — I  felt  no  fear  of  capture.  On 
one  memorable  occasion  she  showed  her  heels  and  her  rider's 
back  in  most  satisfactory  fashion  to  a  squadron  of  Brown- 
low's  Union  Cavalry  in  a  chase  from  near  Triune  to  our  out- 
post, some  four  miles  away.  There  are  times  in  a  soldier's 
life  when,  as  Campbell  expresses  it, 

'Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view. 

In  the  Christmas  raid  through  Kentucky  in  1862,  when 
in  the  crisis  of  the  pursuit  and  hemmed  in  on  all  sides, 
we  were  forced  to  ride  day  and  night  for  thirty-six  hours 
through  a  merciless  blizzard  without  stopping,  and  then, 
after  a  rest  of  six  hours,  went  on  to  the  end  of  our 
seventy- two  hours'  forced  march,  there  was  not  in  that 
entire  command  of  three  thousand  a  horse  more  fit  than 
"The  Little  Black" — for  that  was  her  pet  name  in  the 
regiment. 

In  times  of  stress,  when  food  was  scarce  and  Fanny 
was  hungry,  I  have  often  shared  with  her  the  roasting-ears 
of  com  issued  to  me  as  my  rations.  At  night,  when  we 
bivouacked,  and  the  enemy  was  so  near  that  every  man 
must  be  ready  to  mount  at  a  moment's  notice,  I  would  un- 
spring  the  bit  from  the  head-stall,  and  as  she  ate  her  shelled 
com  from  the  saddle-blanket  I  would  sleep  holding  the  halter 
strap  and  knowing  full  well  she  would  never  tread  upon 
or  attempt  to  wander  from  her  sleeping  comrade. 

We  Southerners  rode  with  long  stirrup-leathers,  such  as 
the  vaqueros  of  Mexico  and  the  cowboys  of  the  plains  and 
pampas  use.  The  trained  horseman  with  this  seat  is  one 
with  his  mount.  When  it  becomes  necessary,  the  saddle 
pressure  can  be  lessened  by  tiptoeing  slightly  in  the  stir- 

19 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

nips.  The  pigskin -covered,  shallow -seated  saddle  of  the 
English,  with  the  short  stirrup-leathers  and  the  bobbing- 
up-and-down  style  of  riding,  is,  from  my  point  of  view  and 
training,  awkward  and  tiring  to  both  rider  and  horse. 

Our  saddles  were  strong,  and  raised  behind  and  in  front, 
so  that  when  firmly  cinched  one  foot  could  be  caught  be- 
neath the  rim  as  the  rider  swung  head  downward  on  the 
other  side  to  pick  up  any  object  from  the  ground.  This 
we  were  trained  to  do  with  the  horse  at  full  gallop.  At 
mounting  we  were  equally  expert,  and  from  either  side  I 
could  mount  or  leap  entirely  over  my  horse,  and  vault  into 
the  saddle  from  behind,  with  my  pistol  buckled  around  the 
waist,  by  placing  my  two  hands  on  the  horse's  rump. 

I  said  good-by  to  my  little  Fanny  on  June  27,  1863,  and 
I  look  back  on  this  as  one  of  the  saddest  experiences  of  a 
lifetime.  It  was  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Shelbyville.  From 
near  Eagleville  on  the  Triune  turnpike  our  regiment,  then 
on  outpost  duty,  was  ordered  to  retreat  hurriedly  to  Shelby- 
ville. Near  noon  we  stopped  for  half  an  hour  to  cool  our 
horses'  backs  and  rest  and  feed.  As  there  was  no  forage 
except  grazing,  I  stripped  my  mount  of  saddle  and  bridle 
and  turned  her  into  a  near-by  clover -field  to  feed  at 
will. 

When  the  bugle  blew  to  saddle  up  I  called  "Fanny!" 
Tossing  her  head  in  the  air  with  a  whinny  of  recognition, 
she  came  to  me  at  once.  Leaping  on  her  back  without  a 
bridle,  I  guided  her  by  a  movement  of  the  hand  toward  my 
company's  bivouac.  As  I  approached  there  lay  across  the 
way  the  huge  trunk  of  a  fallen  tree.  I  urged  her  to  a  canter, 
and  she  jumped  over  the  log  as  I  had  trained  her  over 
hurdles  before  we  began  our  war  experiences.  As  she  rose 
to  take  the  jump  the  inner  calk  of  the  right  fore  shoe  caught 

20 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  the  bark  and  tore  the  shoe  loose.  Unfortunately,  the 
forge  and  farrier  had  moved  on  ahead;  and  as  the  enemy- 
were  in  sight  and  pressing  us,  I  saddled  and  mounted  and 
joined  in  the  six-mile  run  to  Shelbyville.  Within  a  mile  the 
flinty  bed  of  the  macadamized  roadway  had  done  its  work. 
Fanny  began  to  limp,  and  then  to  lag,  as  her  hoof  was  split 
to  the  quick,  and  I  dismounted  and  led  her.  As  good  luck 
would  have  it,  the  enemy  did  not  press  us,  or  I  should  have 
been  lost. 

As  I  came  up  at  last  the  regiment  was  in  line  of  battle, 
and  the  enemy's  line,  a  mile  away,  was  in  sight,  evidently 
preparing  to  advance.  As  I  mounted  and  rode  into  the 
line  Major  Taylor,  seeing  how  lame  my  horse  was,  ordered 
me  to  the  wagon-train  and  would  not  listen  to  my  entreaty 
to  let  me  stay.  Dismounting  and  leading  Fanny,  now  hob- 
bling on  three  legs,  and  depressed  beyond  measure  at  the 
thought  of  being  absent  from  the  first  big  fight  the  regiment 
was  to  be  engaged  in  since  I  had  joined  it,  I  made  my  way 
sorrowfully  to  the  rear. 

Two  or  three  hundred  yards  back  I  came  upon  a  member 
of  my  company  who  told  me  he  was  detailed  to  guard  the 
wagon-train.  As  he  had  a  fairly  good  horse  and  seemed 
anxious  to  take  care  of  one  too  lame  to  be  in  the  fight,  I 
changed  horses  and  equipments;  and,  exacting  a  promise  that 
he  would  take  Fanny  to  my  home  in  Alabama,  where  I  could 
find  her  at  the  close  of  the  campaign,  I  mounted  and  rode 
into  the  line  of  battle  just  as  the  firing  began. 

The  story  of  that  fight,  from  two  o'clock  to  sundown, 
and  the  disaster  which  overtook  me  at  its  close  is  told  else- 
where. The  great  tragedy  of  it  was,  not  that  we  were 
beaten  or  that  I  was  left  on  the  field,  ridden  down  and  over 
by  the  victorious  enemy,  but  that  I  never  again  saw  my 

21 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

noble  Fanny.  The  man  to  whom  I  intrusted  her  reported 
that  she  grew  so  sore  of  foot  she  could  no  longer  move,  and 
he  had  left  her  in  care  of  a  farmer  in  Tennessee.  At  the 
close  of  the  war  my  first  duty  was  to  search  for  my  little 
thoroughbred,  but  no  trace  of  her  could  be  found. 


V 

MAJOR,    THE    VILLAGE    KING — LESSON    FROM    THE    LIFE    OF    A 

NOBLE    DOG 

It  is  as  true  of  dogs  as  of  poets  that  they  are  "born,  not 
made."  Major  was  born  great.  Not  that  he  had  a  proud 
pedigree.  No  more  have  poets  as  a  rule:  Shakespeare's 
father  was  a  glovemaker;  Milton's  a  scrivener;  Spenser's 
a  tailor;  Keats's  paternal  ancestor  kept  a  livery  stable;  and 
the  father  of  Robert  Burns  made  a  very  insufficient  living 
as  a  gardener. 

The  average  poet,  however,  knew  his  father — and  here 
the  comparison  becomes  embarrassing  for  Major.  Genea- 
logically he  was  classified  as  a  mongrel  cur,  but  genealogy, 
like  the  thermometer,  does  not  always  register  correctly. 
The  laws  of  heredity,  like  the  laws  of  the  universe,  are  as 
inexorable  as  they  are  wonderful  and  difficult  of  compre- 
hension. Major  was  an  illustration.  Even  as  the  planets 
of  our  system,  after  eons  of  divergence  in  space,  come  again 
in  conjunction,  so  in  this  loved  and  faithful  companion  of 
my  boyhood,  born  to  be  king  of  his  kind  in  the  village, 
there  united  by  some  mysterious  alchemy  certain  ancestral 
strains,  certain  inherited  qualities,  which  made  him  worthy 
of  founding  a  dynasty. 

Cast  in  human  form,  he  would  have  been  another  Forrest 
or  Jackson,  a  natural-born  soldier.  Courage  and  strategy 
and  tactics  were  of  his  mental  make-up,  and  behind  these 

23 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

qualities  there  was  a  magnificent  endowment  of  muscle 
and  bone  which  made  them  savagely  effective.  Like  the 
"Wizard  of  the  Saddle,"  who  said,  "five  minutes  of  'bulge' 
was  worth  more  than  a  week  of  tactics,"  Major  believed  in 
bulge.  He  always  "show^ed  fight,"  and  never  waited  to  be 
attacked.  Foirest's  one  "general  order"  was:  "When- 
ever you  see  a  Yankee,  show  fight.  If  there  ain't  but  one 
of  you  and  a  hundred  of  them,  show  fight.  They'll  think 
a  heap  more  of  you  for  it." 

Now,  Alajor  was  not  particular  about  what  the  other 
village  dogs  thought  of  him,  but  he  did  enjoy  a  quiet  stroll 
along  a  dogless  highway.  Even  Cowper  in  his  "Morning 
Walk"  was  not  more  fond  of  solitude,  and  as  my  fighter's 
reputation  spread  his  meditations  were  rarely  disturbed. 
At  the  zenith  of  his  reign,  if  there  was  a  canine  in  all  the 
region  round  about  his  Judea  upon  whose  skin  he  had  not 
left  the  indelible  register  of  his  prowess,  it  was  only  because 
the  other  dog  elected  to  keep  between  his  hide  and  Major 
that  distance  which  lent  enchantment  to  the  view.  When 
after  one  of  these  occasional  joy -chases  in  the  wake  of 
a  fleet-footed  vagrant  he  would  return  panting,  with  his 
dripping  tongue  hanging  out  of  one  side  of  his  mouth,  and 
come  up  to  me  to  get  the  usual  pat  of  commendation  on  his 
back,  he  would  sit  down  on  his  hunkers  and  in  very  human 
fashion  laugh  at  the  comical  figure  the  scared  fugitive  had 
cut.  And  it  was  funny  enough  to  make  even  a  dog  laugh; 
for  few  things  are  more  ludicrous  than  precipitate  flight, 
whether  there  be  two  or  four  legs  in  action.  In  my  sol- 
dier days  I  took  an  active  part  in  more  than  one  cavalry 
stampede,  in  which  for  the  time  being  my  comrades  and  I 
parted  company  with  our  family  pride,  which  is  another 
name  for  courage.     On  these  occasions,  if  on  no  other,  I 

24 


"major"  and  his  pupil 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

was  inspired  with  the  idea  of  leadership,  and  if  the  inspira- 
tion was  of  brief  duration  it  was  only  because  the  horse  I 
rode  was  not  equal  to  the  occasion.  As  one  after  another 
the  rattled  troopers  passed  me  in  the  wild  scramble  toward 
safety  I  had  ample  opportunity  to  observe  the  earnestness 
which  characterized  each  individual's  effort  to  annihilate 
distance.  Notwithstanding  the  increasing  proximity  of  the 
pursuers,  I  registered  the  ludicrous  features  of  the  situation, 
and  many  a  time  since  then,  with  bullets  and  sabres  elimi- 
nated, I  have  laughed  over  these  scenes. 

Somebody  has  said,  or  is  said  to  have  said,  "All  the  world 
loves  a  lover,"  which  is  generally  accepted  as  true.  There 
is  another  saying  that  "Everybody  sympathizes  with  the 
under  dog."  Elsewhere  and  in  the  abstract  this  may  have 
been  (or  may  be)  true;  but  in  our  village  it  did  not  hold. 
When  the  bottom  dog  got  on  his  feet,  saw  his  chance,  tucked 
his  tail  between  his  legs,  and  ran,  every  boy  and  man  whose 
Christian  mother  or  wife  was  not  in  hearing  yelled  at  him 
in  terms  not  found  in  the  Westminster  Confession,  and 
added  to  the  fugitive's  intensity  of  purpose  the  quickening 
impulse  of  a  stone  or  a  brickbat. 

Naturally,  Major  became  the  pride  of  the  village,  his 
prowess  the  talk  of  the  neighborhood;  and  I,  his  master, 
shone,  albeit  with  reflected  glor\\  We  are  all  more  or  less 
influenced  by  environment  and  association,  and  little  wonder 
it  soon  came  into  my  mind  that  I  among  my  kind  must 
keep  stride  with  my  victorious  dog.  He  expected  it  of  me, 
and  when  on  one  memorable  day  I  licked  the  bully  of  the 
playground.  Major  jumped  all  over  me  for  joy.  Victors 
on  every  field,  Major  and  his  master,  like  Alexander,  sighed 
for  more  worlds. 

In  a  near-by  settlement  there  was  another  fighting  dog 

3  25 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  local  repute;  and  one  summer's  day  when  the  circus 
came  to  town,  the  boy  who  owned  him  and  his  crowd 
walked  in  to  see  the  sights,  bringing  with  them  the  redoubt- 
able pup.  My  chum  and  I  were  engaged  in  watching  the 
busy  showmen  put  up  the  big  tent,  when  the  other  boys  and 
their  champion  came  on  the  scene.  He  was  a  magnificent 
specimen  of  his  kind,  brindle-colored,  well  muscled,  notice- 
ably longer  in  body  and  neck,  and  some  two  inches  taller 
than  Major.  He  was  evidently  game  to  the  core,  for  he 
no  sooner  saw  my  pet  than  he  bristled  up,  fixed  his  eyes  in- 
tently upon  him,  and  assumed  that  muscular  tension  pe- 
culiar to  the  wolf  and  cat  tribes  when  about  to  spring.  As 
he  and  they  approached,  the  circus  men,  seeing  that  some- 
thing exciting  was  in  the  air,  quit  work  and  with  the  crowd 
of  loiterers  attracted  by  the  "Greatest  Show  on  Earth" 
turned  their  attention  to  the  battle-scene. 

I  recall  distinctly  that  sinking  feeling  which  often  comes 
over  one  in  the  first  few  moments  of  an  impending  crisis, 
the  issue  of  which  is  doubtful.  I  put  my  hand  encourag- 
ingly on  my  companion's  neck,  pulled  his  head  against  my 
leg,  and  said  in  a  low  tone,  "Steady,  Major."  There  must 
have  been  some  quiver  of  the  arm  or  tremor  in  the  voice 
which  betrayed  my  apprehension,  for,  while  the  other  valiant 
knight  was  yet  some  thirty  yards  away,  my  champion 
turned  his  eyes  reproachfully  on  mine  with  a  look  which 
said.  "Watch  me."  I  did  watch  him,  and,  to  my  surprise, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life  Major  did  not  advance  to  meet 
the  enemy.  I  knew  later  his  keen  intelUgence  had  cau- 
tioned him  that  this  was  the  heaviest  contract  he  had  ever 
undertaken,  and  that  strategy  and  tactics  as  well  as  cour- 
age and  strength  would  be  needed  to  win.  I  did  not  know 
it  then,   and  as  the  stranger  boldly  and  deliberately  ad- 

26 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

vanced  I  almost  sank  to  the  earth  with  shame  and  mortifi- 
cation; for  Major  not  only  failed  to  meet  him  half-way, 
but  stood  there  stock-still,  seemingly  not  wanting  to  fight 
and  wagging  his  tail  in  friendly  fashion,  as  if  he  were  about 
to  greet  a  long-lost  brother.  So  deceptive  was  this  assump- 
tion of  friendliness,  or  timidity,  or  cowardice,  that  the  other 
crowd  of  boys  began  to  jeer  and  yell  at  the  top  of  their 
lungs,  "School-butter!"  "Chicken-liver!"  "Soak  him!"  and 
a  lot  of  other  objectionable  constructions  of  nouns,  verbs, 
and  adjectives  of  origin  as  unknown  as  they  were  in- 
sulting. 

It  was  just  as  this  yell  of  exultation  in  anticipation  of  our 
discomfiture  rose  that  the  strategy  of  the  master  was  dis- 
closed. Unused  to  such  a  crowd  and  to  such  an  unearthly 
noise,  the  invader  turned  his  head  for  a  moment  toward  his 
shouting  mob  of  backers.  This  error  sealed  his  doom;  for 
in  that  instant,  like  a  stone  from  a  catapult,  with  lightning- 
like swiftness  and  with  irresistible  force,  Major  bounded  for- 
ward, striking  full-breasted  against  the  side  of  the  neck  and 
shoulders  of  the  longer  dog,  bowling  him  over  and  on  his 
back.  The  stranger  did  not  hit  the  ground  before  his  cun- 
ning and  savage  foe  had  his  throat  and  windpipe  in  the  grip 
of  a  pair  of  jaws  that  never  relaxed  their  hold  until  the 
bottom  dog  was  half  dead  and  hopelessly  beaten,  when 
we  pulled  the  victor  off.  As  Major  shook  himself  and  stood 
over  his  fallen  foe  in  triumphant  pose,  ready  to  renew  the 
attack,  the  crowd  yelled  and  hurrahed  again  and  again  for 
him  and  me.  Then  we  "town  boys"  laughed  best,  because 
we  had  laughed  last. 

Major's  star,  ascendant  from  the  day  he  entered  the 
arena,  reached  its  zenith  in  this  m.onth,  when  he  was  four 
years  old  and  when  Sirius  was  in  its  glory.     From  this  on 

27 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

his  story  is  briefly  told,  and  I  venture  to  apply  to  my  faith- 
ful friend,  tried  and  not  found  wanting,  a  quotation  from 
Froude's  Sketch  of  CcBsar  : 

Everything  which  grows  holds  in  perfection  but  a  single  moment. 

When  the  days  of  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf  came  on  for 
this,  my  Caesar,  the  college  days  came  on  for  me;  and  al- 
though I  did  not  suspect  it  then,  I  bade  a  long  and  last 
good-by  to  the  home  of  a  happy  boyhood  and  to  my  loved 
and  faithful  dog.  From  college  I  went  into  the  Southern 
army  until  the  end  of  the  Civil  War,  and  when  peace  came 
there  was  no  home,  and  Major  had  long  since  gone  to  the 
undiscovered  country.  After  I  had  left,  one  of  the  slaves, 
ambitious  to  maintain  the  prestige  of  the  absent  member, 
brought  into  the  fold  a  puppy,  scion  of  my  village  king, 
who  schooled  him  as  a  fighter,  alas !  to  his  own  un- 
doing. 

As  in  the  course  of  nature  Major's  muscles  withered  and 
his  jaws  became  toothless  his  powerful  and  plucky  son 
grew  more  and  more  resentful  of  the  painful  reprimands  in- 
flicted by  his  hectoring  sire,  and  at  last  turned  on  him  in 
mortal  combat.  I  was  told  that  when  the  servants  pulled 
them  apart  the  beaten  but  unconquered  old  warrior,  stag- 
gering to  his  feet,  tried  in  vain  to  renew  the  hopeless  combat, 
and  then,  with  head  erect  and  lordly  mien,  passed  for  ever 
from  the  scene.  A  week  later  they  found  him  dead  in  the 
edge  of  a  forest  near  the  town.  Victory  or  death  was  the 
lesson  that  came  from  the  spirit  of  this  dumb  creature. 
The  savagery  which  he  exhibited  was  his  by  nature,  uncurbed 
and  unchanged  by  the  impossibility  of  a  higher  intelligence. 
That  of  his  master,  whose  heart  now  in  ripe  old  age,  and  long 
before  he  had  reached  the  years  of  maturity,  was  filled  with 

28 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

regret  that  even  in  the  wild  Hfe  of  the  frontier  and  in  the 
riot  of  restless  boyhood  he  could  delight  in  these  tests  of 
animal  courage  and  skill  and  strength,  had  less  in  extenua- 
tion. With  all  of  this  the  moral  of  the  lesson  was  not  lost: 
"He  who  fights  the  battle  of  life  to  win  or  die,  wins." 


VI 

EARLY    SCENES,    RELIGIOUS    AND    OTHERWISE 

While  a  large  majority  of  our  early  settlers  were  sober 
and  law-abiding,  it  was  inevitable  that  some  lawlessness 
should  prevail  in  the  formative  period  of  a  community  such 
as  this  in  which  I  grew  to  manhood.  Disputed  pre-emption 
claims  and  other  conflicts  of  interest  led  to  feuds  between 
individuals  and  families,  in  the  settlement  of  which  personal 
prowess  and  the  bowie-knife  or  rifle  were  too  often  appealed 
to  instead  of  argument  or  arbitration  or  reason  and  law. 

In  partial  extenuation  of  these  brutal  combats  it  must  be 
said  that  they  usually  were  open  fights  without  unfair  ad- 
vantage; in  fact,  in  all  the  earlier  bloody  history  of  Marshall 
County  I  knew  of  but  a  single  instance  where  one  man  shot 
and  killed  another  from  ambush,  I  witnessed  a  number  of 
these  affairs,  as  they  often  took  place  in  the  streets  of  my 
native  village,  where  the  county  and  district  courts  were 
held,  and  where  from  far  and  near  the  people  came  to  po- 
litical conventions,  or  to  vote  on  election  days,  or  to  take 
part  in  the  annual  muster  of  the  militia.  During  the  after- 
noon of  one  election  contest  in  which  excitement  ran  high 
I  saw  a  half-dozen  different  combats,  while  fully  as  many 
more,  as  I  afterward  learned,  took  place  beyong  my  field  of 
vision. 

The  business  center  of  our  village  was  confined  to  a  single 
street,  on  either  side  of  which  for  some  two  hundred  yards 

30 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  stores  and  shops  were  located.  One  of  these  stores, 
with  a  roof  that  sloped  away  from  the  street,  the  comb  or 
highest  portion  of  which  was  parallel  with  the  edge  of  the 
sidewalk,  was  a  favorite  rendezvous  for  our  crowd  of  boys, 
who  never  willingly  missed  those  exciting  scenes.  Upon 
one  pretext  or  another  we  would  manage  to  get  away  from 
home  and  climb  to  our  gallery  on  Kinzler's  grocery.  This 
point  of  vantage  not  only  gave  us  a  commanding  view  of 
the  street,  but  it  possessed  another  attractive  feature,  for 
we  could  peep  over  the  edge  and  see  all  that  was  going  on 
with  nothing  but  our  eyes  and  the  tops  of  our  heads  in 
danger.  Whenever  a  gun  was  pointed  our  way,  or  a  badly 
aimed  stone  or  stick  flew  too  high,  we  had  only  to  slide  back 
a  few  inches  and  duck  our  heads  to  be  safe  until  the  gun 
went  of  or  the  missile  had  passed  on.  The  casualties  on  one 
occasion  included  one  man  killed  and  a  large  number  laid 
up  for  repairs. 

Another  personal  encounter  that  came  under  my  observa- 
tion was  a  fight  between  two  men,  for  each  of  whom  even  as 
a  small  boy  I  had  formed  a  warm  friendship.  Passing  along 
the  sidewalk  on  an  errand  to  my  father's  ojffice,  I  came  upon 
my  two  friends  in  excited  conversation  standing  on  a  plat- 
form or  open  porch  which  served  as  entrance  to  a  candy- 
shop  where  I  was  a  frequent  visitor.  As  I  stood  within 
a  few  feet  of  them  the  proprietor  of  the  shop,  a  very  small 
but  wiry  man,  stepped  back  quickly,  drew  a  single-barreled 
pistol  from  his  pocket,  and  pointed  it  at  the  other  larger 
man,  saying,  "If  you  take  a  step  toward  me  I'll  kill  you." 
The  big  man  did  not  advance.  He  said,  "I  am  unarmed; 
but  if  you'll  wait  I'll  be  right  back,  and  we'U  settle  it." 
With  this  he  hurried  across  the  street  to  a  dry-goods  store 
and  asked  the  merchant  for  the  loan  of  a  pistol,  which  was 

31 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

refused.  He  then  picked  up  an  ax,  which  he  held  in  his 
right  hand.  With  the  other  he  seized  the  top  of  a  wooden 
packing-box,  and  holding  this  in  front  of  his  chest  and 
abdomen  as  a  Kaffir  would  hold  his  pavise,  or  rawhide  shield, 
to  ward  off  a  thrust  from  an  assagai,  he  walked  straight 
toward  his  adversary. 

Meanwhile  the  small  man  was  standing  at  the  edge  of 
the  platform,  pistol  in  hand,  and  pointing  now  directly  at 
the  big  miller,  who  was  advancing  at  a  fast  walk.  The 
one  thing  which  made  the  most  vivid  impression  on  my 
mind  of  what  happened  here  was  the  self-cocking  feature 
of  the  pistol.  As  the  man  pulled  the  trigger  I  saw  distinct- 
ly the  hammer  rise  just  before  the  flash  and  noise  of  the 
explosion.  I  had  never  before  seen  a  "self-cocker."  My 
big  friend  interposed  the  box-top,  through  which  the  bullet 
passed  before  it  buried  itself  in  the  muscles  of  his  broad 
chest,  where  it  remained  many  years,  to  the  day  of  his 
death.  As  it  struck  him  he  staggered  back  with  the  ax 
slightly  raised,  whereupon  the  other  fighter  hit  him  a  stun- 
ning blow  with  the  heavy  barrel  of  the  empty  pistol.  By 
this  time  some  other  men  had  come  up  and  separated  the 
combatants. 

This  pioneer  settlement  was  about  as  active  and  violent 
in  matters  of  religion  as  in  the  occasional  settlement  "out- 
side the  law"  of  personal  differences.  Of  the  various  sects 
the  Baptists  and  the  Methodists  were  about-squally  divided 
— these  two  outnumbering  all  the  rest.  I  do  not  think  there 
was  a  single  Catholic  in  our  community,  and  only  one 
family  of  Episcopalians,  while  our  immediate  family  fur- 
nished the  Presbyterian  contingent. 

When  my  father  founded  the  present  village  of  Gunters- 
ville  he  gave  a  spacious  lot  to  each  sect,  to  be   deeded 

32 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

when  a  house  of  worship  was  erected;  but  up  to  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  Civil  War,  in  1861,  there  was  not  a  single 
church  edifice  in  the  town.  The  school-house,  the  court- 
house, and  later  the  large  Masonic  Hall  were  used  for 
Sunday  services.  Our  preachers  were  all  "circuit  riders," 
and  occupied  the  pulpit  in  turn,  all  the  sects  attending  to 
swell  the  congregation.  There  was  Sunday-school  from  ten 
to  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  preaching  from  eleven  to 
twelve,  and  again  by  candlelight,  to  which  each  family 
contributed  a  candle  and  a  sconce,  or  holder,  which  was 
fastened  to  the  wall. 

The  Baptists  were  spoken  of  as  the  "Hardshell"  and 
"Foot-washing"  sects,  and  were  believers  in  total  immer- 
sion; and  the  congregations  of  this  particular  chiirch  cele- 
brated once  or  twice  a  year  the  ceremony  of  foot-washing. 
The  creeks  or  the  Tennessee  River  furnished  holes  deep 
enough  for  immersion,  which  usually  took  place  in  warm 
weather,  while  a  piggin  of  water  and  a  towel  served  the 
parson  or  assistants  who  performed  the  foot-washing  rite. 

At  certain  times,  usually  in  the  late  summer  months,  in 
the  periods  of  comparative  leisure  in  a  farming  community 
after  the  crops  were  "laid  by"  and  before  "gathering-time," 
would  be  held  what  were  called  "protracted  meetings"  or 
"revivals."  When  the  attendance  proved  too  large  for  the 
meeting-house  the  congregation  would  move  out  under  the 
shade-trees;  or  more  frequently  great  arbors  made  of  the 
branches  of  thick-leaved  trees  would  be  hastily  constructed. 
The  negroes  spoke  of  these  as  "Bresh-Harbor"  revivals. 

The  "circuit-riders,"  so  called  because  they  were  desig- 
nated to  preach  in  a  circuit  of  several  counties,  traveled 
their  rounds  on  horseback,  as  the  roads  were  new,  ill  kept, 
and  often  impassable  to  any  kind  of  vehicle  except  the 

33 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

crude,  heavy  wagons  drawn  by  oxen.  At  these  protracted 
gatherings  the  exercises  lasted  three  or  four  days,  and  when 
the  excitement  ran  high  a  longer  time  was  utilized  until 
the  supply  of  "mourners"  and  "converts"  was  exhausted. 

The  assistants  to  the  leading  clergymen  were  known  as 
"exhorters,"  selected,  it  seemed  to  me,  on  account  of  their 
cleverness  in  appealing  to  the  emotional  qualities  of  their 
hearers.  Most  of  them  had  good  voices,  and  at  certain 
periods  in  their  exhortations  to  all  who  had  not  been  con- 
verted to  come  up  to  the  mourners'  bench,  confess  their 
sins,  and  be  saved,  they  would  at  the  psychological  moment 
break  forth  in  some  one  of  the  many  revival  songs  which 
rarely  failed  to  fire  the  train  of  religious  fervor  or  hysteria 
which  the  preacher's  sermon  and  his  own  preliminary  ex- 
hortation had  prepared  for  explosion. 

Of  one  of  these  songs  I  recall  a  verse  or  two : 

Jesus  my  all  to  heaven  is  gone; 

Glory  halleluiah! 
Him  whom  I  fix  my  hopes  upon; 

Glory  halleluiah! 

His  track  I  see  and  I'll  pursue; 

Glory  halleluiah! 
If  you  get  there  before  I  do, 
Tell  all  my  friends  I'm  coming,  too; 

Glory  halleluiah! 

And  so  on  for  a  number  of  stanzas.  When  the  song  be- 
gan he  would  leave  the  place  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  where 
he  had  been  standing,  and  rush  along  the  aisles,  shaking 
hands  vigorously  right  and  left  with  all  in  reach,  and  call- 
ing them  by  name  as  "my  brother"  or  "my  sister" — there 
being  as  a  rule  about  three  sisters  to  one  brother.  There 
was  a  very  large  lady  in  our  village  easily  moved  to  tears 

34 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  hysterical  sobbing,  who  usually  gave  way  first  and, 
like  Abou  ben  Adhem,  led  all  the  rest.  By  the  time  the 
sermon  was  over  she  was  about  ready  for  the  outburst, 
and  when  the  exhorter  broke  loose  with  his  "Glory  halle- 
luiah" song  she  would  clap  her  hands  violently  together 
with  a  resoimding  smack,  sway  her  body  back  and  forth, 
and  scream  out  at  the  top  of  her  high-pitched  voice :  ' '  Bless 
the  Lord!  Bless  the  Lord!  Oh,  my  Jesus!"  And  with  this 
she  would  follow  on  the  trail  of  the  exhorter,  crying  out  to 
her  two  sons,  about  eighteen  and  twenty-two  respectively, 
to  "Come  to  Jesus."  These  young  men,  knowing  their 
mother's  weakness,  found  it  convenient  to  sit  near  the  door 
or  an  open  window,  through  which  a  quick  exit  was  pos- 
sible when  she  began  a  rush  for  them. 

I  remember  on  one  occasion  one  of  the  boys  reached  the 
door  and  escaped,  and  the  dear  old  lady  cut  the  other  off 
from  that  exit  only  to  see  him  leap  through  a  window 
at  least  six  feet  from  the  ground.  With  twenty  or  thirty 
mourners  kneeling  before  the  parallelogram  of  benches  ar- 
ranged for  them  just  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  many  of  these 
sobbing,  the  exhorters  singing  and  shaking  hands  in  and  out 
among  the  congregation,  and  a  half-dozen  hysterical  women 
shouting  as  loud  as  they  could  scream,  confusion  reigned. 
There  was  one  young  man  whose  fondness  for  alcohol  caused 
him  to  fall  from  grace  with  recurring  regularity,  and  his  way 
of  restoring  himself  to  divine  favor  was  to  confess  his  errors 
at  these  revivals  and  ask  to  be  taken  back  in  the  fold.  He 
immortalized  himself  with  the  smaller  boys  in  our  neighbor- 
hood by  breaking  out  on  one  occasion  in  an  ecstasy  of  song 
which,  as  far  as  I  knew,  was  entirely  original.  As  the  ex- 
horter was  on  his  rounds,  Jasper  leaped  from  his  seat,  grasp- 
ed him  by  both  hands,  and,  jumping  up  and  down,  not  un- 

35 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

like  the  movements  of  a  turkey -gobbler  in  the  early  spring, 
chanted : 

The  devil  is  dead,  and  I  am  glad; 

Glory  halleluiah! 
He  ain't  got  the  soul  he  thought  he  had; 

Glory  halleluiah! 

My  parents,  being  Presbyterians,  did  not  wholly  approve 
of  these  excitable  religious  demonstrations,  and  I  did  not 
attend  as  many  as  I  should  have  liked.  Their  minister,  who 
always  stayed  at  our  house,  did  not  reach  us  in  his  circuit 
oftener  than  once  in  four  or  five  weeks,  and  the  intervening 
Sundays  I  spent  in  familiarizing  myself  with  the  Westmin- 
ster Confession  of  Faith,  the  religious  section  of  the  New 
York  Observer,  and  Alexander's  Sermons,  one  of  which  I 
was  called  upon  to  stand  up  before  the  family  and  read  aloud. 
How  long  each  one  of  these  effusions  of  the  good  old  Prince- 
ton theologian  seemed!  Visiting  in  19 13,  in  one  of  the  pri- 
vate rooms  of  the  Polyclinic  Hospital,  a  grandson  of  their 
author,  himself  eminent  in  the  affairs  of  the  metropolis,  I 
was  answered  with  a  smile  when  I  told  him  I  rejoiced  at 
last  to  have  an  opportunity  of  taking  revenge  on  the  family 
for  the  wrongs  I  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  his  grand- 
father. 


VII 

THE  ARISTOCRACY  OF  THE  OLD  SOUTH 

It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  society  more  cultured, 
hospitable,  and  delightful,  more  in  harmony  with  that  defi- 
nition of  gentlefolk  as  "those  whose  rule  of  conduct  is 
consideration  for  others,"  than  that  to  which,  thanks  to 
my  mother,  I  found  admission  in  the  community  of  Hunts- 
ville  in  the  days  of  the  old  regime.  This  may  savor  of 
exaggeration  or  prejudice,  or  perhaps  of  conceit;  but  in 
the  larger  view  which  has  come  from  reading  and  travel, 
and  an  association  of  more  than  forty  years  with  many  of 
the  noblest  and  best  of  the  metropolis,  nothing  like  it  has 
come  to  my  knowledge.  Such  a  society  was  possible  only 
with  the  institution  of  slavery;  and  when  slavery  ended  it 
ended  never  again  to  be  reproduced.  The  people  composing 
this  society  were  almost  wholly  descended  from  the  cav- 
aliers of  Virginia,  many  of  the  earlier  settlers  coming  di- 
rectly from  the  tide-water  section  of  the  Old  Dominion; 
others  indirectly,  from  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  and  North 
Carolina — countries  which  were  stocked  by  the  Virginia 
overflow. 

In  the  spirit  of  adventure,  and  with  the  wealth  in  slaves 
inherited  from  their  fathers,  these  hardy  scions  of  a  noble 
race  passed  over  the  mountains,  pre-empted  the  rich  valley 
of  the  Tennessee,  and  established  there  a  New  Virginia. 
Twelve  miles  north  of  the  Tennessee  River,  in  the  upper 

37 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

reaches  of  a  rich  agricultural  section,  where  the  spurs  of  the 
Appalachian  range  begin  to  hem  it  in  from  the  north,  at  the 
base  of  a  picturesque  limestone  cliff,  there  gushes  from  the 
earth  a  spring  of  crystal  water.  It  is  of  such  volume  and 
force  that  it  sets  in  motion  the  powerful  machinery  which 
carries  unlimited  luxury  into  every  home.  Upon  the  sum- 
mit of  the  bluff  which  overlooks  this  marvelous  spring  and 
the  far-reaching  valley  through  which  the  silvery  stream 
flows  toward  the  great  river,  one  of  those  restless  pioneers, 
John  Hunt  by  name,  built  his  cabin  of  cedar  logs  in  1806 
and  claimed  the  region  roundabout.  There  was  no  Ala- 
bama then — only  Indians  and  wilderness.  The  area  which 
now  forms  the  states  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi  was 
ceded  in  1802  by  Georgia  to  the  United  States.  The  fact 
that  the  Cherokee  Indians  had  lived  there  from  time  be- 
yond the  memory  of  man  and  still  claimed  the  land  did  not 
matter  to  John  Hunt.  He  was  friendly  with  the  aborigines, 
and  sent  his  Calebs  and  Joshuas  back  to  civilization  to 
spread  the  news  of  the  rich  Canaan,  and  others  just  as  hardy 
and  just  as  hungry  for  land  joined  him.  The  discreet 
Cherokees,  children  of  the  great  Sequoyah,  wisest  of  all  the 
Indian  tribes,  realizing  that  the  better  part  of  valor  was 
discretion,  and  seeing  that  the  white  man  was  surely  crowd- 
ing him  out,  ceded  in  18 19,  for  a  price,  all  their  claims  north 
of  the  Tennessee  River,  and  in  the  same  year  Congress 
made  of  Alabama  a  sovereign  state. 

Huntsville  had  not  waited  for  this.  Indians  or  no  In- 
dians, it  was  a  town  already,  having  incorporated  itself  in 
181 1 ;  and  in  181 2,  the  year  that  our  second  war  began  with 
England,  when  Napoleon's  Grand  Army  was  freezing  to 
death  in  Russia,  and  one  year  before  the  great  Tecumseh 
passed  along  the  Creek  Path  in  sight  of  these  settlers'  log 

38 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

defenses  and  made  those  speeches  which  stirred  the  red 
men  to  the  massacre  of  Fort  Mims  and  to  other  bloody 
deeds,  Huntsville  was  pubhshing  The  Madison  Gazette,  the 
first  newspaper  printed  within  the  Hmits  of  the  present  state. 
The  first  sessions  of  the  legislature  were  held  here,  and 
but  for  its  location  in  the  extreme  northern  end  of  the  state 
it  would  without  doubt  have  been  the  permanent  capital. 
It  remained,  however,  the  political  capital  and  the  social 
and  commercial  center  of  one  of  the  most  enterprising  and 
productive  agricultural  communities  in  the  New  World. 
For  more  than  a  hundred  miles  in  all  directions  the  rich 
owners  of  vast  estates  whose  work  was  done  by  slaves,  and 
the  humbler  settlers  who  came  in  covered  wagons  and  cleared 
their  small  farms  and  tilled  them  with  their  own  hands, 
everybody,  except  the  outlaws  and  the  rowdies,  who  haunt- 
ed the  wilderness  for  refuge,  made  of  Huntsville  even  in 
these  earlier  days  the  Mecca  toward  which  all  eyes  were 
turned.  The  wealthier  people  built  their  homes  and  churches 
here,  established  in  1812  the  famous  Greene  Academy,  a 
college-preparatory  school,  whence  to  La  Grange  College,  or 
Henry  and  Emory,  or  William  and  Mary,  or  the  University 
of  Virginia,  or  Princeton,  or  elsewhere  in  the  then  far-away 
world  their  sons  went  for  their  finishing  studies.  The 
Huntsville  Seminary  (Presbyterian),  where  my  mother  and 
her  daughters  were  educated,  and  the  equally  famous  and 
popular  Female  College  (Methodist),  were  other  institutions 
of  learning  which  won  for  this  beautiful  city  the  well- 
deserved  name  of  the  "Athens  of  the  South."  The  country 
was  so  new,  the  atmosphere  and  environment  so  inspiring  to 
endeavor,  that,  instead  of  yielding  to  the  softening  influences 
of  wealth  and  the  luxury  which  the  institution  of  slavery 
implied,  the  men  of  this  period  turned  their  attention  to 

39 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

active  pursuits,  to  the  excitement  of  politics,  to  manufac- 
turing and  commercial  enterprises,  and  to  public  improve- 
ments. Theirs  was  the  first  cotton  factory  in  the  state, 
and  probably  in  the  far  South,  established  in  1832,  the  ma- 
chinery being  run  by  the  water-power  of  Flint  River.  The 
magnificent  macadamized  roads,  which  stand  to-day  as 
models  of  highway  construction,  were  built  by  them  while 
yet  the  crack  of  the  Indian's  rifle  was  heard  in  the  near-by 
brakes. 

In  this  delightful  society,  through  years  of  peace  and 
prosperity  and  happiness,  my  mother  had  lived  from  in- 
fancy to  the  fullness  of  a  noble  womanhood;  hither  came 
Louis  Wyeth,  a  young  lawyer,  just  turned  of  twenty-seven, 
and  already  appointed  by  the  state  legislature  judge  of 
the  new  county  of  Marshall,  carved  out  of  the  Cherokee 
country,  and  lately  opened  for  settlement.  Thence  went  this 
man  and  woman,  whom  God  had  joined  and  nothing  but 
death  could  part,  to  their  new  home  in  the  wild  and  sparsely 
settled  region  to  the  south,  from  which  as  yet  the  Indians  had 
not  wholly  departed.  John  Allan,  her  father,  had  graduated 
from  the  University  of  Georgia  in  1807.  In  addition  to  the 
Greek  and  Latin  classics;  he  had  mastered  the  French  lan- 
guage, and,  supplementing  his  college  course  with  another 
in  theology,  he  made  himself  familiar  with  Hebrew  litera- 
ture. Having  been  admitted  to  the  ministry,  and  having 
married  the  daughter  of  a  soldier,  who  in  recognition  of  his 
services  in  the  war  for  independence  had  been  granted  a 
rich  estate  in  the  blue-grass  region  of  Tennessee,  he  accepted 
the  call  to  the  Presbyterian  church  in  Huntsville.  From 
the  pulpit,  and  in  his  professorship  of  the  classics  in  the 
Greene  Academy,  he  became  a  power  for  good,  and  died 
at  his  post,  universally  beloved  and  lamented. 

40 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Naturally,  the  home  of  such  a  family  as  his  became  a 
center  of  the  refinement  and  culture  of  the  community,  a 
rallying-point  of  the  remarkable  group  of  men  and  women, 
many  of  whom  as  they  grew  to  maturity  found  high  places 
in  the  esteem  of  mankind  and  later  wrote  their  names  in 
history.  First  of  all,  as  the  memory  of  these  earlier  days 
flashes  through  my  mind,  there  comes  a  woman,  the  girlhood 
and  lifelong  friend  of  my  mother,  Virginia  Tunstall,  de- 
scended as  were  almost  all  of  them  from  the  cavaliers; 
later  to  be  more  widely  known  as  the  brilliant  leader  of 
society  at  the  national  capital  in  the  decade  that  preceded 
the  tragedy  of  1861-65,  as  the  wife  of  Senator  Clement  C. 
Clay,  Jr.  The  story  of  that  unique  period  is  known  to  all 
readers  of  our  native  literature  in  a  most  fascinating  book 
by  Mrs.  Clay,  A  Belle  of  the  Fifties.  Still  holding,  in  19 14, 
the  sway  she  could  not  relinquish  if  she  would,  the  sole 
survivor  of  the  brilliant  throng  of  whom  I  write,  one  can 
fitly  apply  to  her  that  unsurpassed  compliment  of  Shake- 
speare to  womanhood: 

Age  cannot  wither  her,  nor  custom  stale 
Her  infinite  variety. 

The  Clays  all  came  from  Virginia.  The  famous  orator 
was  from  Ashland,  near  Richmond,  and  I  have  always  felt 
a  touch  of  pride  that  my  kinsman,  George  Wythe,  discov- 
ered Henry  Clay,  educated  him,  and  trained  him  in  the 
law.  Clement  C.  Clay,  the  elder,  from  Halifax,  in  the  Old 
Dominion,  came  to  Hunts ville  in  181 1,  served  many  terms 
in  the  legislature,  and  was  governor  and  United  States 
Senator.  Clement  C.  Clay,  Jr.,  his  son,  "to  the  manner 
born  and  native  here,"  with  his  university  degree,  succeeded 
his  father  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  was  the  first 
4  41  ^ 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Senator  elected  from  Alabama  to  the  Southern  Confeder- 
acy. His  history,  even  down  to  the  long  and  wearisome 
and  unjust  persecution  of  imprisonment  in  Fortress  Monroe, 
is  known  to  all.  The  record  stands  without  a  stain.  And 
here  Jere  Clemens,  lawyer,  legislator,  soldier  of  the  Mexican 
"War,  Senator  of  the  United  States,  and,  beyond  all  such 
ordinary  distinction  to  my  youthful  mind,  author  of  Ber- 
nard Lite,  Mustang  Gray,  and  The  Rivals;  or,  the  Days  oj 
Burr  and  Hamilton.  How  many  a  tallow  candle  that  I  helped 
my  mother  mold  have  I  seen  melt  away  as  I  read  and  re- 
read these  "romances,  couched  in  gorgeous  diction  and 
abounding  in  thrilling  episode,"  when  I  should  have  been 
absorbed  in  the  brain-racking  exercises  of  algebra  or  geom- 
etry! A  college  man  of  La  Grange  and  the  State  Univer- 
sity, handsome  of  feature  and  proud  of  carriage,  no  won- 
der the  maidens  of  the  land  fell  victims  to  his  charms. 
Virginia  Tunstall  was  not  alone  in  the  list  of  young  girls 
whose  hearts  beat  faster  at  first  sight  of  this  "Romeo  of 
Madison  County." 

Let  her  tell  it  in  her  own  Inimitable  way :  * 

"It  was  to  my  Uncle  Tom  that  I  owe  the  one  love  sorrow 
of  my  life.  It  was  an  affair  of  the  greatest  intensity  while 
it  endured,  and  was  attended  by  the  utmost  anguish  for 
some  twelve  or  fourteen  hours.  During  that  space  of  time 
I  endured  all  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  yearnings  and  de- 
spairs, to  which  the  human  heart  is  victim.  I  was  nearing 
the  age  of  fifteen  when  my  uncle  one  evening  bade  me  put 
on  my  prettiest  frock  and  accompany  him  to  the  home  of  a 
friend,  where  a  dance  was  to  be  given.  I  was  dressed  with 
all  the  alacrity  my  old  mammy  was  capable  of  summoning, 
and  was  soon  ensconced  in  the  carriage  and  on  my  way  to 

'  A  Belle  of  the  Fifties,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1904. 
42 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  hospitable  scene.  En  route  we  stopped  at  the  hotel, 
where  my  uncle  alighted,  reappearing  in  a  moment  with  a 
very  handsome  yoimg  man,  who  entered  the  carriage  with 
him  and  drove  with  us  to  the  house  where  he,  too,  was  to 
be  a  guest. 

"Never  had  my  eyes  beheld  so  pleasing  a  masculine 
wonder!  He  was  the  personification  of  manly  beauty! 
His  head  was  shapely  as  Tasso's  (in  after  life  I  often  heard 
the  comparison  made),  and  in  his  eyes  there  burned  a  ro- 
mantic fire  that  enslaved  me  from  the  moment  their  gaze 
rested  upon  me.  At  their  warmth  all  the  ardor,  all  the  ideals 
upon  which  a  romantic  heart  had  fed,  rose  in  recognition 
of  their  realization  in  him.  During  the  evening  he  paid  me 
some  pretty  compliments,  remarking  upon  my  hazel  eyes 
and  the  gleam  of  gold  in  my  hair,  and  he  touched  my  curls 
admiringly,  as  if  they  were  revered  by  him. 

"My  head  swam!  Lohengrin  never  dazzled  Elsa  more 
completely  than  did  this  knight  of  the  poet's  head  charm 
the  maiden  that  was  I.  We  danced  together  frequently 
throughout  the  evening,  and  my  hero  rendered  me  every 
attention  a  kind  man  may  offer  to  the  little  daughter  of  a 
valued  friend.  When  at  last  we  stepped  into  the  carriage 
and  turned  homeward  the  whole  world  was  changed  for 
me. 

"My  first  apprehension  of  approaching  sorrow  came  as 
we  neared  the  hotel.  To  my  surprise,  the  knight  was  will- 
ing, nay,  desired  to  be  set  down  there.  A  dark  suspicion 
crept  into  my  mind  that  perhaps,  after  all,  my  hero  might 
be  less  gallant  than  I  had  supposed,  else  why  did  he  not 
seek  this  opportunity  of  riding  home  with  me?  If  this 
wonderful  emotion  that  possessed  me  also  had  actuated 
him — and  how  could  I  doubt  it  after  his  devotion  through- 

43 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

out  the  evening? — how  could  he  bear  to  part  from  me  in 
this  way  without  a  single  word  or  look  of  tenderness? 

"As  the  door  closed  behind  him  I  leaned  back  in  the  dark- 
est corner  of  the  carriage  and  thought  hard,  though  not 
hardly,  of  him.  After  a  little  my  uncle  roused  me  by  say- 
ing, 'Did  my  little  daughter  enjoy  this  evening?'  I  re- 
sponded enthusiastically. 

'"And  was  I  not  kind  to  provide  you  with  such  a  gallant 
cavalier?     Isn't  Colonel  Jere  Clemens  a  handsome  man?' 

"Ah,  was  he  not?  My  full  heart  sang  out  his  praises 
with  an  unmistakable  note.  My  uncle  listened  sympa- 
thetically; then  he  continued,  'Yes;  he's  a  fine  fellow,  Vir- 
ginia, and  he  has  a  nice  little  wife  and  baby.' 

"No  thunderbolt  ever  fell  more  crushingly  upon  the  un- 
suspecting than  did  these  awful  words  from  the  lips  of  my 
uncle.  I  know  not  how  I  reached  my  room,  but,  once  there, 
I  wept  passionately  throughout  the  night  and  much  of  the 
following  morning.  Within  my  own  heart  I  accused  my 
erstwhile  hero  of  the  rankest  perfidy,  of  villainy  of  every 
imaginable  quality;  and  in  this  recoil  of  injured  pride 
perished  my  first  love  dream, ^  vanished  [the  heroic  wrap- 
pings of  my  quondam  knight!" 

With  all  his  charm  of  manner  and  handsome  face,  this 
gifted  man  fell  short  of  his  opportunities.  The  judgment  of 
Jacob  upon  his  first-born  son  might  well  apply  to  him! 
"Unstable  as  water,  thou  shalt  not  excel."  Although  a 
member  of  the  Secession  Convention,  signing  the  ordinance 
which  carried  his  native  state  into  the  Southern  Confed- 
eracy, and  accepting  the  chief  command  of  all  the  Alabama 
forces  when  hostilities  were  declared,  he  resigned  later,  and 
when  the  armies  of  the  North  occupied  Huntsville  he  went 

44 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SC-ALPEL 

over,  "foot,  baggage,  and  artillery,"  to  those  making  savage 
war  upon  the  people  among  whom  he  was  born  and  reared 
and  to  whom  he  owed  the  distinction  that  had  been  accorded 
to  him.  His  kinsman,  Samuel  L.  Clemens  (Mark  Twain), 
joined  the  Confederate  cavalry  as  a  lieutenant,  and  de- 
serted, as  did  Henry  M.  Stanley,  the  noted  explorer. 

From  Virginia  also  came  John  W.  Walker,  a  Princeton 
graduate,  and  the  first  United  States  Senator  from  Ala- 
bama, and  his  two  sons,  Richard  and  Pope,  born  in  Hunts- 
ville  and  schooled  at  Greene  Academy  and  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Virginia  and  at  Princeton ;  the  former  a  Confederate 
State  Senator,  the  latter  the  first  Secretary  of  War  in  the 
Confederate  cabinet.  Gabriel  Moore,  lawyer,  governor, 
Congressman,  United  States  Senator,  and  James  G.  Birney 
were  Huntsville  men.  The  latter,  with  my  mother's  father, 
John  Allan,  organized  the  first  "Society  for  the  Emancipa- 
tion of  Slavery"  in  Alabama,  published  a  newspaper  found- 
ed to  advocate  the  cause  of  abolition,  and  was  the  nominee 
on  this  ticket  in  1840,  and  again  in  1844,  for  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States. 

Also  came  hither  Reuben  Chapman,  of  Caroline  County, 
Virginia,  lawyer,  legislator,  governor,  and  Congressman.  I 
remember  my  father  reading  to  me  a  letter  from  this  famous 
politician,  asking  his  advice  as  to  whether  or  not  he  could 
safely  vote  for  an  appropriation  then  before  Congress  for 
a  certain  sum  of  money  to  construct  an  experimental  tele- 
graph line  from  Washington  City  to  Baltimore.  My  father 
advised  him  to  vote  for  it  by  all  means,  but  added,  "You 
need  not  hope  to  be  re-elected  if  you  do." 

Dr.  Henry  Chambers,  from  the  Old  Dominion,  the  only 
member  of  the  medical  profession  ever  elected  to  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States  from  Alabama,  was  a  practising  physi- 

45 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

cian  here.  James  White  McClung,  the  brilliant  and  dissi- 
pated orator;  William  Smith,  who  was  offered  and  declined 
an  associate-justiceship  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States;  Silas  Parsons,  of  the  state  Supreme  Court;  Colonel 
Robert  and  Dr.  Thomas  L.  Fearn,  the  Erskines,  Mastins, 
Popes,  Coles,  Brandons,  Facklers,  Donegans,  Lanes,  Acklens, 
Garths,  Irbys,  Russells,  Newmans,  Mathewses,  Leftwicks, 
Calhouns,  Phelans,  Beimes,  Hales,  Weedons,  and  Pattons, 
and  many  others  were  of  this  extraordinary  community  of 
pioneers  in  which  my  parents  moved.  The  list  would  not 
be  complete  did  I  not  mention  Robert  C.  Brickell,  the 
famous  chief  justice  of  the  state  Supreme  Court,  and  his 
associate  in  law,  Septimus  D.  Cabaniss;  also  Peter  M.  Dox 
and  Wm.  M.  Lowe,  members  of  Congress,  each  of  whom  was 
bound  to  my  father  by  the  ties  of  personal  friendship. 

Into  this  community  I  made  my  first  entrance  when  I 
was  nine  years  old.  I  had  learned  the  story  of  Aladdin, 
and  now  I  felt  as  if  his  lamp  was  mine.  Bom  in  a  log  cabin 
and  reared  in  the  country  of  the  Cherokees,  as  yet  little  more 
than  a  wilderness,  I  knew  nothing  of  the  outer  world  except 
what  I  had  gathered  from  conversation  with  my  parents. 
The  sun  which  rose  over  the  high  mountains  an  hour's  walk 
from  our  home,  and  went  down  behind  the  range  which 
shut  in  our  beautiful  valley  on  the  west,  measured  the 
limits  of  my  horizon.  The  near-by  hills  and  valleys  and 
streams  and  woods  made  up  my  world.  I  knew  the  trees 
in  the  forests  and  the  animals  and  birds,  wild  and  tame, 
before  I  knew  the  names  of  the  human  beings  coming  in 
ever-increasing  numbers  into  the  newly  opened  territory. 

My  father  made  frequent  journeys  away  on  errands  con- 
nected with  his  law  practice,  and  every  year  my  mother  made 
a  visit  of  a  few  weeks  to  her  old  home  and  girlhood  friends 

46 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  Huntsville,  and  this  time  I  was  to  go  with  her.  We  took 
the  steamboat  Lookout,  which  puffed  and  whistled  and 
churned  the  water  into  huge  waves  that  went  surging  from 
underneath  the  great  stern  wheel,  which  turned  over  so 
fast  and  made  such  a  mighty  splashing.  Captain  Matt 
Todd,  whose  boat  it  was,  took  me  on  the  roof — he  called 
it  the  "hurricane-deck" — and  held  me  as  I  leaned  over  to 
watch  the  water  fly  from  the  strokes  of  the  paddles,  or 
"buckets,"  and  then  into  the  pilot-house,  where  the  man 
at  a  smaller  wheel  turned  it  one  way  and  then  another, 
always  busy  and  watchful,  as  our  boat  plowed  between  great 
rocks  that  we  could  see  down  below  the  surface,  or  sunken 
logs  or  "sawyers"  (loose,  half-submerged  logs),  or  swept 
around  a  bend  in  the  beautiful  river.  Great  cliffs  of  stone, 
with  cedars  clinging  to  the  fissures  in  the  rock,  rose  up  on 
one  or  the  other  side  so  high  at  times  I  wondered  if  any- 
body ever  climbed  to  the  top. 

On  we  went,  by  great  plantations  of  corn  and  cotton;  and 
every  now  and  then  the  deafening  whistle  blew,  and  the  big 
bell  rang,  and  the  noisy  wheel  stopped  as  we  swung  around 
bow  up-stream  and  tied  to  the  bank  to  take  on  or  put  off 
travelers  and  freight.  At  the  mouth  of  Flint  River,  where 
the  shoals  were  bad,  the  good  Lookout  went  aground,  and 
a  great  rope  hawser  had  to  be  taken  ashore  and  fastened 
by  one  end  to  a  big  tree  while  the  other  was  wound  around 
the  capstan  until  our  boat  was  pulled  back  into  the  channel. 

From  Whitesburg  Landing  we  drove  the  twelve  miles  to 
Huntsville  in  a  stage-coach.  The  road  was  so  wide  and 
white  and  hard  I  wondered  if  it  was  the  same  kind  of  earth 
we  were  used  to.  No  dust,  no  stumps  for  the  wheels  to 
bump  over,  no  loose  rocks,  and  no  mud-holes.  Then  my 
mother  told  me  of  a  Mr.  McAdam,  who  taught  people  how 

47 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  build  good  roads  of  crushed  stone,  and  how  "her  people" 
had  learned  to  do  this  long  ago.  Near  sundown  we  climbed 
a  high  hill,  and  from  the  top  of  this  I  saw  ever  so  many- 
houses  clustered  together,  and  one  with  a  great  round  dome 
high  above  the  others,  and  farther  on  a  steeple  even  higher 
still.  They  told  me  one  was  the  court-house  and  the 
other,  my  mother  said,  was  her  father's  church.  We  had 
no  court-house  where  we  lived,  and  up  to  this  moment  I 
had  never  seen  a  church.  There  were  preachers  at  times  in 
Marshall,  "circuit-riders"  who  came  to  our  village  every 
once  in  a  while,  usually  on  horseback,  with  their  sermons 
and  belongings  in  a  pair  of  saddle-bags,  preached  and  held 
"revivals"  in  our  log  school-house,  and  in  summer-time 
under  brush  arbors. 

Somewhere,  in  a  street  with  great  houses  stretching  away 
on  both  sides  as  far  as  I  could  see,  our  stage  stopped,  and 
we  got  out.  I  remember  the  high  iron  fence,  and  the  gate 
that  opened  into  the  park-like  yard,  and  the  smoothly  mown 
blue  grass,  and  ever  so  many  shade-trees  on  either  side  of 
the  long  brick  walk  which  led  up  to  the  mansion.  The 
servants  took  our  luggage,  and  Colonel  Fearn  and  his  dear 
wife  came  out  to  welcome  my  mother.  They  called  her 
by  her  school-girl  name,  and  she  spoke  to  them  as  "Robert" 
and  "Mary,"  for  they  had  grown  up  together.  Even 
Caledonia,  the  seamstress,  who  had  been  lady's-maid  to  her 
young  mistress  in  their  younger  days,  courtesied  and  took 
my  mother's  hand  as  she  said,  "Howdy,  Miss  Phemie." 
I  wondered  why  Carter  (I  can't  spell  it  as  Colonel  Fearn 
pronounced  it,  for  he  had  the  tide-water  accent),  the  butler, 
wore  a  red  waistcoat  and  a  blue  coat  with  shiny  brass 
buttons;  and  I  was  told  that  was  his  livery.  The  wide 
front  portico  was  nearly  as  large  as  all  of  our  little  house  at 

48 


A    HUNTSVILLE    MANSION    OF   THE    EARLY    DAYS 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

home,  and  the  great  white  columns  went  up  two  stories  to 
the  roof;  and  inside  there  was  a  maze  of  rooms  and  wind- 
ing stairs  and  strange,  old-fashioned  furniture — bureaus  and 
tables,  and  beds  with  long  posts  which  reached  to  near  the 
ceiling,  and  had  tops  or  testers,  with  curtains  on  the  sides. 
How  strange  it  all  was,  and  a  lonesome  feeling  came  over 
me,  and  I  wanted  to  go  back  home! 

I  remember  vividly  that  when  we  went  to  the  supper- 
table  I  saw  for  the  first  time  a  silver  fork,  and  it  felt  so  awk- 
ward as  I  tried  to  eat  with  it  that  I  boldly  asked  Colonel 
Feam  if  I  couldn't  have  "a  sure-enough  fork  instead  of  a 
split-spoon."  He  laughed  louder  than  I  thought  he  ought 
to  as  he  said:  "Carter,  go  to  the  kitchen  and  bring  that 
child  another  fork." 

Another  great  surprise  was  in  store  for  me  when  I  dis- 
covered up  in  our  room  that  there  were  pipes  which  carried 
cold  and  hot  water,  and  that  we  didn't  have  to  go  to  the 
spring  with  a  bucket  and  bring  it  in  by  hand.  I  learned 
later  that  there  were  hydrants  on  the  corners  of  all  the 
streets,  and  I  soon  learned  that  by  pushing  down  on  the 
handle  and  slipping  a  pebble  above  it  I  could  keep  the  clear 
stream  flowing  until  the  gutter  was  as  full  as  the  spring 
branch  at  home;  and  one  day  a  rude  policeman  took  the 
pebble  out  and  stopped  the  water  from  wasting,  with  a 
threat  to  arrest  me  if  I  did  it  again.  But  the  greatest  sur- 
prise was  in  store  for  me  when  I  saw  what  I  was  told  was 
gas-light;  no  wick  or  candle  or  lamp,  just  light;  and  there 
was  nothing  to  do  but  to  turn  a  brass  key  and  strike  a 
match.  What  a  wonderful  new  world  all  this  was  to  a  boy 
of  nine  years  who  had  never  before  been  out  of  sight  of  his 
home  in  the  backwoods! 

I  shall  never  forget  those  Huntsville  gardens  and  the 

49 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

beautiful  flowers.  These  we  had  at  our  home;  for  my 
mother  watched  and  cared  for  her  rose-bushes  and  flower- 
beds with  her  own  hand,  and,  as  I  was  always  with  her,  I  had 
learned  their  names;  but  here  the  grounds  were  very  large, 
and  this  garden  was  laid  out  like  a  big  Chinese  puzzle. 
There  were  tiny  paths  that  led  in  all  directions,  with  dense 
rows  of  box  along  the  edges,  and  the  beds  were  grouped  in 
all  sorts  of  fantastic  shapes,  and  down  at  one  end  stood  a 
small  house  all  of  glass  windows  where  they  put  things  away 
in  cold  weather  to  keep  the  frost  from  killing  them.  Farther 
away  was  the  vegetable  garden,  for  there  were  no  market- 
houses  in  those  early  days,  and  every  home  provided  for 
itself;  and  back  of  this,  opening  on  an  alleyway  which 
cut  the  block  in  two,  were  the  spacious  stables  for  the  milk- 
cows,  horses,  and  carriages. 

As  we  entered  the  church  the  next  Sunday  morning  I 
found  myself  in  the  largest  room  I  had  ever  been  in,  with 
row  after  row  of  benches — enough,  it  seemed  to  me  then,  to 
seat  all  the  people  in  Marshall  County.  On  the  high  wall 
at  the  end  where  the  preacher  stood  was  a  tablet,  and  in  big 
letters  was  written  my  grandfather's  name,  and  when  he 
was  installed  as  pastor,  and  the  date  of  his  death.  When 
the  minister  said  the  prayer  I  started  to  kneel  down  as  we 
did  when  my  father  had  family  prayers  at  home,  but  here 
they  all  stood  up  to  pray.  What  was  just  as  strange  as 
this  was  the  way  he  gave  out  the  hymn,  which  he  read  verse 
after  verse  all  through  before  any  one  began  to  sing.  At 
our  "meetings"  the  preacher  alone  had  a  hymn-book,  and 
he  gave  out  only  two  lines  at  a  time,  which  was  as  much 
as  he  thought  the  congregation  could  remember,  and  then 
when  they  had  sung  these  he  would  go  on  with  more  until 
the  whole  hymn  was  finished. 

50 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

When  the  Huntsville  minister  read  the  last  verse,  a  half- 
dozen  young  people  stood  up  over  in  the  corner  of  the  church, 
and  as  they  began  to  sing  there  sounded  with  their  voices 
the  soft,  low  tones  of  some — to  me — strange  instrument 
(the  organ),  and  such  heavenly  harmonies  as  I  had  never 
dreamed  were  in  the  world.  No  wonder  my  mother  loved 
to  come  to  Huntsville,  and  no  wonder  I  looked  forward 
after  this  first  visit  to  the  many  I  was  to  make,  and  did 
make,  in  the  years  which  followed,  until  I  felt  at  home,  and 
knew  by  face  and  name  all  of  these  delightful  people,  the 
like  of  whom  I  shall  not  look  upon  again. 

Their  "literary  circles,"  the  yearly  "college  commence- 
ments" in  which  they  took  such  justifiable  pride,  and,  above 
all,  as  I  grew  older  and  better  able  to  appreciate  them,  the 
great  political  debates  in  which  the  foremost  men  of  that 
period  figured  in  the  tournaments  of  oratory,  were  among 
the  great  attractions  to  this  exceptional  community.  It 
was  here,  in  1859  or  i860,  in  the  shade  of  a  beautiful  grove 
of  oaks,  where  thousands  of  people  were  gathered,  I  sat 
for  four  hours  and  had  no  thought  of  the  lapse  of  time  as 
I  listened  to  the  fiery  argument  in  favor  of  secession  by 
William  L.  Yancey,  then  famous  as  one  of  the  greatest  po- 
litical orators  of  our  country. 


VIII 

THE   NEGRO   AND   SLAVERY   IN   THE    OLD   SOUTH 

The  negro  of  the  South  in  the  days  of  slavery  so  little 
resembles  the  "colored  citizens"  of  half  a  century  later 
that  we  of  the  earlier  period  scarcely  recognize  in  him  the 
descendant  of  those  of  his  race  with  whom  we  were  once 
so  happily  associated.  The  charm  of  manner,  the  pride  of 
family — the  "quality,"  as  they  so  aptly  termed  it — the  sen- 
timent of  loyalty,  affection,  and  trust  which  characterized 
the  relation  between  these  faithful,  patient,  submissive,  and 
happy  creatures  and  the  "white  folks"  in  the  "big  house" 
is  now  only  a  memory. 

For  nearly  two  hundred  miles  the  fertile  valley  of  the 
Tennessee,  in  which  I  was  born  and  grew  to  manhood,  was 
a  succession  of  plantations  tilled  almost  wholly  by  slaves. 
On  some  of  these  the  owner  lived  and  superintended  in  per- 
son the  laborers,  while  on  others  an  overseer  took  charge 
for  the  master,  whose  home  was  in  some  center  of  culture, 
usually  where  there  were  schools  or  colleges  which  the  chil- 
dren attended. 

As  child  and  boy  I  played  and  romped  with  the  younger 
negroes  belonging  to  my  parents  and  neighbors;  visited  the 
various  plantations,  and  knew  intimately  scores  of  this  race 
living  under  the  various  conditions  of  slavery;  and  I  know 
that  with  very  rare  exceptions  the  negroes  were  treated 
with  great  kindness  and  consideration.     They  were  well 

52 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

fed,  housed,  and  clothed,  and  when  ill  had  the  best  avail- 
able medical  attendance.  Had  human  sympathy  been  en- 
tirely absent,  the  protection  of  valuable  property  would  for 
selfish  reasons  have  assured  this  fostering  care.  They  were 
happy  and  contented,  and  proved  their  gratitude  by  an 
affectionate  loyalty  and  an  efficient  and  profitable  service. 
To  my  mind,  in  no  other  way  can  there  be  explained  that 
wonderful  exhibition  of  devotion  in  those  millions  of  slaves 
toiling  away  on  the  home  plantations  during  the  four  years 
of  the  war  which  their  absent  owners  were  waging  for  their 
continued  enslavement.  And  this  notwithstanding  the  knowl- 
edge which  was  general  among  them  that  the  success  of  the 
Federal  army  meant  for  them  freedom! 

As  there  were  no  white  domestic  servants  in  the  South 
and  no  freed  negroes  in  Alabama,  since  the  law  required 
that  all  emancipated  slaves  should  be  transported  to  a  free 
state  or  exported  to  Liberia,  my  parents,  both  of  whom 
favored  emancipation,  bought  for  house  service  two  families 
of  negroes,  each  consisting  of  the  father  and  the  mother  and 
their  children,  some  twelve  or  fifteen  in  all.  They  were  as 
near  being  members  of  the  family  as  was  possible  in  the 
kindly  relation  of  master  and  mistress  and  slave.  When 
"Mack,"  our  majordomo,  was  taken  seriously  ill,  a  room  was 
given  him,  not  in  his  own  comfortable  house,  but  in  our 
residence,  where  we  thought  he  could  be  more  carefully 
watched.  His  wife,  a  woman  of  fine  character,  was  a  sec- 
ond mother  to  us  as  children.  We  called  her  "Mammy," 
and  when  our  own  mother  was  not  at  hand  we  knew  to 
whom  to  look  for  our  needs. 

When  in  later  unhappy  years  the  war  came  on  and  I  was 
about  to  mount  my  horse  and_ride  away  to  take  my  place  in 
the  ranks,  and  said  good-by  to  my  mother  and  my  father, 

S3 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

I  knew  that  back  in  the  kitchen  this  devoted  black  woman 
was  waiting  for  me  to  come  to  have  her  blessing ;  and  there, 
with  her  arms  around  "the  boy  she  had  brought  up" — 
for  I  was  not  yet  eighteen  years  old — I  had  the  only  "crying- 
spell"  of  the  parting  scene.  I  said,  "Mammy,  the  chances 
are  you  won't  see  me  again,  and  I  know  you  will  take  good 
care  of  all  the  folks  at  home."  She  said  she  would;  and 
she  was  true  to  her  word,  even  refusing,  as  did  all  of  our 
slaves,  to  go  away  when  the  Union  army  occupied  our  sec- 
tion and  offered  them  their  freedom  from  bondage. 

It  was  my  father's  custom  to  have  family  prayers,  and 
the  negro  children  were  required  to  be  present,  the  only  dis- 
tinction being  that  we  sat  on  chairs  and  they  had  stools 
or  small  ottomans.  Physical  punishment  was  unknown 
except  when  the  parents  switched  their  own  children  for 
cause.  I  cannot  imagine  a  more  mutually  satisfactory  ar- 
rangement than  such  servitude  under  such  humane  condi- 
tions. There  was  a  very  great  deal  of  this  sort  of  relation- 
ship in  our  section,  and,  as  I  believe,  throughout  the  entire 
South.  There  was  another  side  to  the  picture,  however; 
for  the  system  did  allow  of  cruelty  and  inhumanity,  and, 
though  this  was  very  rare,  it  could  and  did  exist  at  times, 
and  it  was  the  knowledge  of  this  fact  that  made  so  many 
of  the  best  people  of  the  South  emancipationists. 

The  number  of  slaves  belonging  to  a  single  plantation 
varied  in  our  section  from  ten  to  twenty-five  or  fifty,  rarely 
exceeding  one  hundred.  While  I  knew  personally  every 
slave-owner  in  our  county  and  a  great  many  of  the  slaves, 
it  so  happened  that  I  spent  more  time  and  became  more 
intimately  acquainted  with  the  management  of  the  estab- 
lishments belonging  to  my  cousin,  Mr.  James  A.  Boyd,  in 
Madison  County,  where  I  frequently  visited,  remaining  for 

54 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

weeks  at  a  time,  and  that  of  Dr.  Sydney  Harris,  a  retired 
physician  who  lived  on  and  managed  his  own  plantation 
near  our  village.  His  residence — known  in  plantation  par- 
lance as  "the  big  house"  or  "the  white-folks'  house" — 
made  of  smoothly  hewn  logs  v/ith  chinking  filling  the  inter- 
stices, all  painted  in  white,  with  large  halls  and  passage- 
ways, stood  on  a  slight  elevation  or  hillock,  surrounded  by  a 
grove  of  oak  and  hickory  trees,  which  almost  hid  it  from  view 
as  one  approached  through  the  half-mile  of  open  road  which 
led  from  the  front  gate  through  the  fields  of  cotton,  corn, 
and  grain. 

Beginning  some  seventy -five  yards  to  the  rear  in  the 
same  grove,  and  arranged  in  two  parallel  rows,  each  with  its 
spacious  yard  and  vegetable  garden,  were  ranged  a  dozen 
or  more  comfortable  whitewashed  log  cabins  of  different 
sizes  to  accommodate  the  various  families  of  slaves.  Still 
farther  back  were  the  stables  and  the  barns,  the  gin-house, 
the  cotton-press,  and  the  fields  for  pasturage.  It  was  the 
duty  of  the  head-man,  the  most  trusted  and  capable  of  the 
slaves,  to  be  up  early  to  see  that  the  work-animals  were 
properly  fed  and  curried;  and  at  daybreak  the  horn  blew, 
calling  all  hands  to  breakfast.  By  sunrise  the  plows  and 
hoes  were  going,  and  kept  busy  until  twelve  noon,  when  a 
blast  from  the  horn  sounded  the  hour  of  rest  and  dinner; 
then  back  to  the  fields  till  sundown. 

There  was  no  white  overseer  or  slave-driver  on  this  place. 
One  of  the  negroes  was  in  charge  to  see  that  each  did  his 
duty.  On  rainy  days  there  was  plenty  of  indoor  employ- 
ment, such  as  spinning  and  weaving,  making  or  mending 
harness  and  shoes  and  repairing  the  wagons,  for  every  big 
plantation  had  its  blacksmith  and  carpenter  shop,  ran  spin- 
ning-wheels and  looms,  and  made  most  of  its  clothing.    When 

55 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  crops  had  been  gathered,  the  winter  supply  of  wood  was 
cut  and  hauled  in ;  and  the  thousand  and  one  odds  and  ends 
of  keeping  a  great  estate  in  order  and  in  getting  ready  for 
the  next  crop  were  attended  to.  The  physical  and  moral 
welfare  of  these  slaves  was  carefully  looked  after  by  the 
good  doctor  and  his  gentle  and  cultured  wife. 

After  the  work  of  the  day  was  over,  the  negroes  were  re- 
quired to  remain  on  the  place,  and  usually  from  fatigue  and 
the  necessity  of  rising  early  they  were  in  bed  an  hour  after 
dark.  On  Saturday  nights  singing  and  dancing  were  per- 
mitted in  the  cabins,  and,  by  special  permission  in  writing, 
visits  could  be  made  to  neighboring  plantations.  The  con- 
stable of  each  township  or  "beat"  was  the  official  patrol, 
and  had  authority  to  punish  by  arrest  and  whipping  any 
negro  slave  found  "after  an  hour  by  sun"  away  from  his 
home  without  a  written  and  signed  "pass  and  repass." 
The  form  was :  * '  Pass  the  bearer  to  and  from  the  plantation 
named  between  eight  and  twelve  o'clock  to-night."  (Dated 
and  signed  by  the  owner.) 

This  precaution  was  taken  to  prevent  vagrancy,  to  keep 
the  laborers  in  good  condition  for  work,  and  to  guard  against 
the  possibility  of  conspiracy  and  insurrection.  While  the 
relations  between  the  white  people  of  the  Tennessee  Valley 
and  the  negroes  were  in  every  respect,  as  far  as  I  was  able 
to  judge,  kindly  and  mutually  trustful,  the  Southern  people 
had  learned  from  the  occasional  outbreaks,  and  especially 
from  the  midnight  massacre  of  women  and  children  in  the 
Southampton  uprising  in  1831,  that  watchfulness  was  as 
essential  a  guarantee  of  safety  as  kindliness.* 

*  Nat  Turner,  the  instigator  and  leader  of  the  Southampton  massacres,  was 
the  trusted  head-man  and  overseer  of  his  owner.  The  kindly  relations  of 
owner  and  slave  were  exemplified  in  his  case.     On  the  day  of  the  night  when 

S6 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  negroes  of  our  section  were  so  well  behaved  that 
punishment  of  any  kind  was  almost  unknown.  I  never 
heard  of  a  negro  being  whipped  by  the  patrol  in  our  county, 
and  knew  of  but  a  single  instance  where  a  rawhide  was 
used  in  chastisement.  A  negro  man  who  had  done  some 
injury  to  another  received  thirty-nine  lashes  on  his  naked 
back  from  the  constable  of  our  town,  under  an  order  of  the 
court.  With  the  enterprising  curiosity  of  a  boy,  I  climbed 
the  jail-yard  fence  and  witnessed  this  performance.  The 
first  half-dozen  lashes  were  severe  enough  to  cause  the  un- 
happy victim  to  cry  out,  and  after  that  only  the  form  of  the 
law  was  carried  out. 

It  was  on  the  occasion  of  one  of  my  earlier  visits  to  the 
plantation  of  my  cousin,  Mr.  James  A.  Boyd,  in  Madison 
County,  that  I  first  witnessed  a  "corn-shucking."  In 
gathering  the  corn  the  ears  were  pulled  from  the  stalks  and 
piled  in  pens  near  the  cribs.  The  negroes  on  one  plantation 
were  privileged  to  invite  those  of  other  places  near  by  to 
come  at  dark  on  Saturday  night.  A  bonfire  was  built  at 
a  safe  distance,  by  the  light  of  which  the  men  and  the  women 
ranged  themselves  around  the  corn-piles  and  began  to  strip 
the  shuck,  or  husk,  from  the  ear,  to  the  cadence  of  their 
African  chants  and  weirdly  melodious  singing.  One  of  the 
number,  by  reason  of  his  greater  accomplishments,  took 
the  part  of  leader,  and  from  the  top  of  the  heap  sang  out 
or  chanted  a  line  of  a  verse  often  improvised.     When  he 

he  began  his  murders  he  feigned  illness,  and  the  lady  to  whom  he  belonged 
cooked  and  carried  to  his  cabin  the  food  she  thought  would  be  best  for  a  sick 
man.  He  repaid  these  kindly  acts  by  slipping  into  their  room  at  dead  of  night 
and  knocking  her  husband  and  herself  in  the  head  with  hatchet  or  ax  and 
braining  her  baby  against  the  fireplace.  Details  of  this  insurrection  will  be 
given  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  the  movement  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
and  the  Harper's  Ferry  attempt  at  servile  insurrection. 

5  57 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ceased,  the  chorus  of  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  voices  would 
take  up  the  refrain  and  carry  it  in  a  strange  and  varying 
cadence  of  sounds  without  words,  which  typified  joy  or 
sorrow,  or  an  emotion  in  full  sympathy  with  the  sentiment 
expressed  by  the  leader. 

I  can  recall  only  a  few  of  these  lines,  and  wish  I  could 
transcribe  the  music.  For  instance,  the  leader  would  sing: 
"I'm  gwine  away  to  leave  you,"  and,  as  this  v/as  suggestive 
of  the  sadness  of  parting,  the  chorus  would  begin  in  a  low 
moan,  which,  rising  and  falling,  would  for  a  minute  or  two 
be  carried  to  the  fullest  tone,  and  then  die  avv-ay  so  grad- 
ually one  could  scarcely  say  just  when  it  ceased.  Then  the 
leader  would  chant  in  tones  a  little  less  tinged  with  sadness : 
"I'm  gwine  to  de  happy  islands!"  And,  as  this  suggested 
the  consummation  of  a  dream  of  rest,  the  chanting  of  the 
chorus  was  more  cheeringly  rendered. 

On  these  occasions  extraordinary  liberties  were  per- 
missible, and  not  infrequently,  as  the  white  people  of  the 
premises  were  listening,  the  bold  leader  would  by  suggestion 
open  the  way  for  a  holiday,  or  a  barbecue,  or  a  dance,  or 
extra  Christmas  vacation,  when  they  visited  relatives  and 
friends  on  other  plantations.     For  example: 

Marster  an'  Mistus  lookin'  mighty  fine — 
Gwine  to  take  a  journey;    gwine  whar  day  gwine; 
Crab-grass  a-dyin',  red  sun  in  de  west — 
Saturday's  comin',  nigger  gwine  to  rest. 

And  much  more  in  this  happy  vein.  Meanwhile  every- 
one was  busy  stripping  com,  throwing  the  ears  into  the 
winter  crib  and  packing  the  shucks  in  the  rail  pens.  It 
took  usually  about  three  hours  for  the  many  hands  to  strip 
all  the   corn   raised  on  the  place,  and  then  there  was  a 

58 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

supper  with  all  sorts  of  home-made  edibles,  especially 
pumpkin  pies,  sweet  cakes,  and  persimmon  beer,  a  refresh- 
ing, unfermented  beverage  which  the  negroes  made  from 
this  fruit. 

Among  the  articles  of  diet  peculiar  to  the  negroes  on  the 
great  plantations  were  the  "ash-cake,"  the  "hoe-cake,"  and 
the  "Johnny-cake."  The  two  first  named  were  made  of 
corn-meal  dough.  For  hoe-cake  the  dough  was  spread  or 
"patted  "  thin  on  the  smooth  surface  of  a  hoe  and  held  close 
to  the  fire  until  it  was  cooked  brown.  The  other  was 
wrapped  in  corn-shucks,  leaves,  or  brown-paper,  and  buried 
under  the  hot  ashes  and  embers  until  it  was  well  baked  or 
roasted.  The  Johnny-cake  was  made  of  wheat-flour  dough, 
with  "shortenin'"  (some  form  of  grease  or  fat)  in  it;  and 
this,  as  with  the  hoe-cake,  was  spread  thin  on  a  hickory 
or  an  ash  board  and  baked  before  the  coals.  Many  a  time 
I  have  shared  these — to  me  then — delicious  breads  with  my 
friends  and  playmates  of  another  race. 

The  real  fun  began  with  the  dancing.  The  banjo  and 
the  fiddle  made  up  the  orchestra,  and  there  were  accom- 
panists who  ' '  patted ' '  with  the  hands,  keeping  accurate  time 
with  the  music.  In  patting,  the  position  was  usually  a  half- 
stoop  or  forward  bend,  with  a  slap  of  one  hand  on  the  left 
knee  followed  by  the  same  stroke  and  noise  on  the  right, 
and  then  a  loud  slap  of  the  two  palms  together.  I  should 
add  that  the  left  hand  made  two  strokes  in  half-time  to 
one  for  the  right,  something  after  the  double  stroke  of  the 
left  drumstick  in  beating  the  kettle  -  drum.  In  rare  in- 
stances I  have  seen  the  triangle  in  these  crude  orchestras 
or  trios,  and  have  heard  that  before  the  triangle  came  into 
vogue  the  dried  and  resonant  jaw-bone  of  the  ox  or  horse 
was  used  this  way,  the  sides  being  rhythmically  struck  with 

59 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

a  rib.  I  have  no  doubt  of  this,  for  I  learned  from  one  of 
their  songs,  handed  down  by  repetition,  probably,  from  pre- 
American  sires,  these  lines: 

Oh,  de  jaw-bone  walk, 

And  de  jaw-bone  talk, 

And  de  jaw-bone  eat 

Wid  a  knife  and  fork: 

I  laid  my  jaw-bone  on  de  fence, 

And  I  hain't  seed  dat  jaw-bone  sence. 

When  on  these  occasions  the  crowd  was  very  large,  they 
would  divide  and  go  to  the  cabins  in  smaller  parties,  or  the 
big  floor  of  the  gin-house  may  have  been  selected.  Strange 
to  say,  they  did  not  relish  dancing  on  the  ground,  in  the 
manner  of  the  American  Indians;  and  I  think  this  can  be 
explained  by  the  negroes'  instinctive  love  of  rhythm,  which 
the  Indian  does  not  seem  to  possess.  The  shuffle  of  the 
feet,  in  many  instances  unshod — for  in  warm  weather  they 
would  pull  off  their  shoes  to  keep  their  feet  cool — could  not 
be  heard  as  distinctly  on  the  ground  as  on  a  plank  floor  or 
a  tight  puncheon.^  I  have  often  seen  them  dance  on  the 
bottom  of  a  wagon-bed,  which  made  an  excellent  sounding- 
board.  The  dances  were  primitive  and  gave  opportunity 
for  great  activity;  and  when  two  danced  alone,  whether  of 
the  same  sex  or  not,  the  object  seemed  to  be  to  determine 
which  could  outdo  the  other.  As  the  "steps,"  or  gyra- 
tions and  contortions,  not  only  of  the  body  and  the  legs,  but 
of  the  arms  and  the  hands,  grew  more  violent  and  rapid, 

J  A  puncheon  was  the  flat  surface  of  a  split  log,  smoothed  with  an  ax  and 
pinned  to  the  joists  to  make  the  floors  of  the  rude  cabins  constructed  before 
sawmills  were  introduced.  Sometimes  they  became  loose,  and  rocked  or 
rattled  when  trod  upon.  When  the  negroes  would  dance  a  pas  de  deux,  a  tight 
puncheon  was  selected,  and  the  two  danced  forward  and  back  on  this  single 
slab.  Hence  the  common  expression,  "Hunt  your  puncheon,"  when  some- 
thing fixed  or  solid  or  sure  was  desired. 

60 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  spectators  would  begin  to  pat  and  shout  words  of  ap- 
proval or  kindly  criticism,  until  at  last  one  of  the  contes- 
tants gave  up  and  the  victor  was  hailed  as  the  "best  man." 
At  midnight  the  frolic  ended,  and  the  visitors  returned  to 
their  several  homes. 

The  banjo  was  the  real  musical  instniment  of  the  South- 
ern negroes,  not  the  fancy  silver  or  nickel  rimmed  article 
with  frets  seen  now  on  the  minstrel  stage  or  in  the 
shops,  but  a  very  crude  device,  which  I  believe  to  be  of 
native  origin,  notwithstanding  the  name  is  said  to  be 
corrupted  from  the  Spanish  bandore.  The  most  primitive 
instrument  was  made  from  a  large  gourd  with  a  long, 
straight  neck  or  handle,  shaped  like  those  of  smaller  growth, 
used  commonly  then  for  drinking  -  dippers.  The  bowl  of 
the  gourd  was  cut  away  on  a  plane  level  with  the  surface 
of  the  neck,  the  seed  and  contents  removed,  and  over  this, 
like  a  drumhead,  a  freshly  tanned  coonskin  was  stretched, 
fastened,  and  allowed  to  dry.  The  five  strings  of  home- 
made materials  passing  from  the  apron  behind  over  a  small 
bridge  near  the  middle  of  the  drumhead  were  attached  to 
the  keys  in  proper  position  on  the  neck. 

I  learned  to  play  upon  a  banjo  which  one  of  our  slaves, 
who  was  a  very  good  performer,  helped  me  to  make,  when 
I  was  about  eleven  years  old.  The  rim  was  made  from  the 
circle  of  a  cheese-box.  A  calfskin  soaked  in  lime  solution, 
which  removed  the  hair,  was  tacked  while  wet  over  one  sur- 
face of  this,  while  the  stem  was  carved  from  a  suitable  piece 
of  soft  poplar.  I  was  extravagant  enough  to  import  four 
catgut  strings  and  a  wire  bass,  which  excited  no  little  curi- 
osity, as  they  were  the  first  ever  seen  by  our  negroes.  To 
the  uninitiated  there  would  probably  be  some  surprise  at 
the  quality  of  the  music  or  harmony — even  if  crude — which 

6i 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

could  be  produced  by  playing  on  this  primitive  instrument. 
"Billy,"  my  teacher,  accompanied  his  various  tunes  with 
songs  rendered  with  no  ordinary  skill — at  least,  that  was  the 
verdict  of  his  pupil.  One  of  these  "selections"  was  a  great 
dancing-score  entitled  "Jimmie  Rose,"  and  no  one  with  any 
love  of  music,  or  even  an  ordinary  sense  or  appreciation  of 
rhythm,  could  keep  his  feet  still  as  Billy  "waked  to  ecstasy," 
not  "the  living  lyre,"  but  our  home-made  banjo. 
The  song  was  something  in  this  strain : 

Jimmie  Rose  he  went  to  town; 
Jimmie  Rose  he  went  to  town; 
Jimmie  Rose  he  went  to  town; 
To  'commodate  de  ladies. 

Fare  ye  well,  ye  ladies  all 
Fare  ye  well,  ye  ladies  all 
Fare  ye  well,  ye  ladies  all 
God  Ermighty  bless  you. 

And  so  for  an  hour  or  more  my  instructor  would  continue 
with  the  exploits  of  his  hero,  Jimmie  Rose,  while  the  others 
in  twos  or  fours  danced  away,  "cutting  the  pigeon- wing," 
"the  back-step,"  "the  double  shuffle,"  and  other  steps  which 
required  not  only  a  keen  sense  of  keeping  time  with  the 
music,  but  agility  and  muscular  power  of  a  high  order. 

The  real  negro  music  as  I  knew  it  was,  as  one  would  ex- 
pect, simple  and  crude,  and  quite  unlike  that  which  modern 
negro  minstrelsy  has  made  popular.  One  of  the  best-known 
"jig,"  or  short-step,  banjo  and  dance  tunes  was  called 
"Juba." 

Juba  dis  and  juba  dat; 
Juba  kill  a  yaller  cat. 
Juba  up  and  juba  down; 
Juba  nmnin'  all  aroun'. 

62 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Ole  Aunt  Kate  she  bake  de  cake; 
She  bake  it  hine  de  garden  gate. 
She  sift  de  meal,  she  gim  me  de  dust, 
She  bake  de  bread,  she  gim  me  de  crust, 
She  eat  de  meat,  she  gim  me  de  skin. 
And  dat's  de  way  she  tuck  me  in. 

Another  piece  much  in  vogue  was: 

Sugar  in  de  gourd;  when  you  want  to  git  it  out. 

Way  ter  git  de  sugar  out  roll  de  gourd  about. 

There  was  one  old-time  tune  called  "Johnny  Booker," 
which  I  learned  very  early  from  the  negroes,  and  I  believe 
it  to  have  originated  with  them.  It  had  a  swing  and  go  to 
it  which  suited  the  banjo  as  played  by  the  plantation  negro 
— that  is,  "over-hand,"  and  not  "guitar  fashion,"  as  almost 
all  are  taught  now. 

I  went  down  de  back  ob  de  fiel'; 

A  black-snake  cotch  me  by  de  heel. 

I  cut  my  dus',  I  run  my  best; 

Run  my  head  in  a  hornet's  nest. 
Oh!  do,  Mr.  Booker,  do;    Oh,  do,  Johnny  Booker,  do; 
Oh  do,  Mr.  Booker,  Johnny  Booker,  Mr.  Booker,  Mr.  Booker,  Johimy 
Booker,  do! 

Another  popular  song  referred  to  the  "patrol,"  which  the 
negroes  styled  "patter-rollers": 

Run,  nigger,  run;  patter-roller  catch  you; 
Run,  nigger,  run;  it's  almos'  day; 
Run,  nigger,  run;  patter-roller  catch  you; 
Run,  nigger,  run;  you'd  better  git  away. 
Dis  nigger  run;  he  run  his  best; 
Stuck  his  head  in  a  hornet's  nest. 
Jump'd  de  fence  and  run  frew  de  paster; 
White  man  run,  but  nigger  run  faster. 

There  was  an  embellishment  of  this  "star"  selection  which 
may  be  of  interest.     After  playing  the  music  of  the  chorus, 

63 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Billy  would  pause,  lay  the  banjo  across  his  knees,  and  speak 
in  about  this  style,  preluding  his  remark  with  one  of  those 
long  -  drawn  -  out  grunts  or  weirdly  intonated  expressions 
of  great  surprise  which  only  the  African  seems  to  enjoy: 
"Golly!  folks;  I  went  to  see  Miss  Sal  last  Sat'day  night. 
Sal's  a  handsome  gal,  too,  no  'ceptions  to  dat.  I  ain't  more'n 
had  time  to  'spress  myself  on  de  occasion  when  Sal  say, 
'Looky  dar,  Peet!'  'Looky  whar,  Sal?'  'Look  at  dat  patter- 
roller  peepin'  frew  de  crack!'"  Then  a  second  long  grunt 
or  ejaculation  of  surprise. 

"Golly!  chillun;  dis  yer  nigger  riz  as  quick  as  a  nigger 
could  convenient;  jumped  frew  de  winder,  fell  ober  de 
wood-pile,  knocked  de  wood  into  short  sticks,  an'  took  down 
de  road  fas'  as  my  laigs  could  go,  an'  de  white  man  he  tuk 
airter  me,  an'  ebery  jump  I  make  de  white  man  say"  (then 
he  would  sing) : 

"Run,  nigger,  run,  patter-roller  ketch  you,"  etc. 

"Sech  a  gittin  up-stairs  I  nebber  did  see,"  and  "Susanna, 
don't  you  cry,"  were  also  banjo  tunes  of  more  modem  origin. 
I  can  recall  only  a  single  verse  and  the  refrain  of  the  latter: 

I  jumped  on  board  de  telegraf, 

An'  floated  down  de  ribber. 

De  'lectric  fluid  magnified 

An'  killed  five  hundred  nigger. 

Oh,  Susanna,  don't  you  cry  for  me. 

For  I'se  down  in  Alabama  wid  de  banjo  on  my  knee. 


Still  another; 


Ole  Aunt  Dinah  she  done  got  drunk; 
Fell  in  de  fire;    kicked  up  a  chunk. 
De  red-hot  coals  got  in  her  shoe — 
Good  Lord!   how  de  ashes  flew! 

64 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

"Nellie  Gray,"  "Ole  Dan  Tucker,"  "Jordan  am  a  Hard 
Road  to  Trabbel,"  'T'se  Gwine  on  Down  to  Lynchburg 
Town,"  and  scores  of  other  pieces  of  more  modern  produc- 
tion were  in  vogue,  and  popular  with  the  negroes. 

In  addition  to  their  love  of  melody  they  were  fond  of 
story-telling,  and  many  a  night  I  have  slipped  off  to  Mammy 
Tildy's  cabin  to  sit  by  her  at  the  kitchen  hearth  and  listen 
to  the  weird  stories  of  ghosts  and  other  "skeery"  things, 
until  I  was  afraid  to  go  alone  in  the  dark  the  very  short  dis- 
tance between  her  door  and  the  porch  of  our  house.  Joel 
Chandler  Harris  has  done  much  to  popularize  the  negro 
folk-lore  stories,  but  I  do  not  recall  that  he  dwelt  upon  the 
pantomime  accompaniment  which  was  a  part  of  some  of 
these  dramatic  recitals. 

By  way  of  illustration  I  will  repeat  a  story  which  I  learned 
from  a  very  superior  member  of  his  race,  a  coal-black  negro 
with  clear-cut  features  after  the  type  of  physiognomy  of  the 
African  East  Coast.  "Uncle  Henry  Moore"  was  one  whose 
ability  and  character  obtained  for  him  the  confidence  of  his 
master  and  of  the  entire  community,  and,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  franchise,  he  was  granted  about  every  privilege 
that  the  ruling  whites  enjoyed;  with  all  of  which,  together 
with  freedom  from  responsibility  and  taxes,  he  should  have 
been,  and  I  believe  was,  a  happy  and  contented  being.  He 
did  not  even  require  a  "pass"  at  night,  and  he  could  come 
and  go  at  all  hours  without  molestation.  He  was  a  frequent 
visitor  with  our  servants,  and  I  never  tired  of  listening  to 
«  him.  This  is  one  of  his  stories,  entitled,  "Uncle  Efra'm  and 
de  Lord": 

Ole  Marster  come  along  down  de  quarter  one  dark  night, 
and  dess  as  he  was  passin'  Uncle  Efra'm's  cabin  he  heered 
de  ole  man  a-prayin'  so  loud  and  so  e'rnes'-like,  he  dess  say 

65 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  hisself :  'I'se  gwine  ter  stop  and  listen  ter  what  Efra'm's 
a-sayin'.'  So  he  walk  up  on  hes  tiptoe  an'  put  his  eye  ter 
a  hole  in  de  chinkin',  an'  dar  was  Efra'm  down  on  hes  knees 
a-prayin'  and  a-supplicatin'  to  de  good  Lord,  an'  he  say — 
an'  ole  Marster  he  heared  ever'  word  he  say — *0  Lord, 
hear  de  pra'r  ob  old  Uncle  Efra'm,  for  he  tired  o'  livin'  in  dis 
yer  worl'  whar  de  grass  grow  so  fas'  and  de  sun  shine  so 
hot,  and  de  nigger  do  all  de  wu'k,  and  ole  Marster  he  dess  set 
aroun'  in  de  shade;  and  0  Lord,  come  down  and  take 
Uncle  Efra'm  inter  Abraham's  bosom,  whar  dar  ain't  no 
grass  a-growin'  an'  de  sun  don't  shine  like  a  bresh-heap 
a-burnin'.     Yes,  Lord,  come  down  right  now!' 

"An'  when  old  Marster  hear  dat  he  say  to  hisself,  'I  gwine 
ter  try  Uncle  Efra'm';  an'  so  he  knock  free  times  wid  de 
butt  en'  ob  his  walkin'-stick  on  de  side  ob  de  cabin,  and 
when  Efra'm  hear  de  knockin'  he  stop  a-prayin',  an'  he  say, 
*Who  dat  knockin'?*  An'  ole  Marster  he  dess  change  hes 
voice,  an'  he  say  pow'ful  slow,  'It's  de  Lord  come  down  to 
answer  Efra'm's  pra'r!'  An'  de  ole  nigger  was  dat  skeered 
he  didn't  know  whether  he  los'  his  hearin'  or  not,  an'  he 
holler  out  loud,  'Who's  dat  you  say  you  is?'  An'  ole  Marster 
he  say  ag'in,  'It's  de  Lord  come  down  to  take  Efra'm  to 
Abraham's  bosom';  and  by  dat  time  Efra'm  was  a-shakin' 
all  over  like  he  have  a  chill,  an'  he  say,  a-tremblin',  'Look 
here,  Lord;  Efra'm  don't  live  her  no  mo' — he  done  move 
away!'" 

All  through  this  recital  Uncle  Henry's  voice  would  be 
modulated  to  suit  the  meaning  he  wished  to  convey,  and 
every  gesture  and  movement  was  in  sympathy  with  the 
text.  He  would  kneel  down  to  show  how  Ephraim  prayed, 
and  then  get  up  and  walk  to  the  door,  open  it,  lean  outside, 
knock  three  times  on  the  wall,  and  then  imitate  from  with- 

66 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

out  in  the  dark  the  voice  of  the  Lord.  By  this  time  the 
children  in  the  half-circle  about  the  fireplace — for  all  the 
cooking  was  done  then  on  the  open  hearth — would  be  in 
such  a  condition  of  excitement  that  I  for  one  would  not 
have  been  surprised  to  see  the  Lord  walk  right  in  and 
snatch  Black  Mammy  and  me  (for  I  was  sticking  so 
close  to  her  He  would  have  had  to  take  us  both),  and  flit 
away  to  plant  us  in  Abraham's  bosom.  I  might  add  pages 
of  negro  folk-lore  stories  and  of  incidents  associated  with 
the  life  of  the  slave  with  us,  but  what  I  have  already  said 
is  enough  to  show  the  true  relation  of  the  negro  slave  to  the 
white  people  of  our  immediate  section.  I  will  add  one  very 
remarkable  experience  connected  with  this  race,  for  fear 
there  may  be  made  of  it  no  other  published  record. 

Three  miles  from  our  village,  at  a  plantation  known  as 
"Beard's  Bluff,"  on  the  Tennessee,  there  lived  a  Mr. 
McLemore,  who  owned  a  negro  called  "Cap."  He  was 
about  twenty-five  years  old  when  I  first  remember  him; 
dark  brown  or  almost  black  in  color,  and  of  normal  devel- 
opment physically,  with  the  exception  of  his  eyes,  which 
were  unusually  prominent  (exophthalmus)  and  opened  wider 
than  I  had  ever  observed.  The  almost  constant  rolling 
movement  of  his  eyeballs,  which,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  he 
could  not  fix  steadily  on  any  object,  gave  him  an  uncanny 
expression.  In  fact,  he  was  mentally  defective  in  the  or- 
dinary sense,  and  had  to  be  cared  for  as  if  he  were  a  child. 

As  his  parents  were  field-hands,  at  work  on  the  plantation 
during  most  of  the  day,  the  kind  master  had  built  a  cabin 
for  them  in  the  yard  of  his  own  home,  where  the  helpless 
boy  might  be  cared  for  while  the  mother  was  absent. 
When  he  was  about  fifteen  years  old  Mr.  McLemore  noticed 
one  day  that  the  boy  who  had  been  shelling  the  grains  from 

67 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

an  ear  of  corn  had  arranged  them  decimally — i.  e.,  in  squares 
of  ten  rows,  each  row  containing  ten  grains.  He  stopped 
for  a  moment  and  said,  "Ten  times  ten  makes  a  hundred, 
ten  times  one  hundred  makes  one  thousand."  The  negro's 
face  lighted  up  with  a  look  of  surprise  or  joy,  and  he  re- 
peated the  words  of  the  master,  who  then  repeated  the 
numerals,  and  soon  discovered  the  boy's  wonderful  apti- 
tude for  figures  and  for  calculation.  Although  he  never 
learned  to  read  or  write,  he  developed  into  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  mathematical  machines  I  have  ever  known. 
He  would  solve  instantly  problems  in  multiplication  which 
would  take  me  an  hour  or  more  to  work  out  and  prove.  For 
instance,  he  was  given  this  example: 

"Cap,  the  hind-wheel  of  a  wagon  is  five  feet  in  diameter; 
it  is  forty  miles  from  here  to  Huntsville.  How  many  times 
will  it  revolve  in  going  that  distance?"  As  the  proposition 
was  being  given  out  his  eyeballs  would  turn  upward,  and, 
with  the  lids  half  closed,  only  the  white  portion  was  visible. 
By  the  time  the  last  word  of  the  questioner  was  spoken  he 
would  begin  with  the  answer,  which  was  invariably  correct; 
and  after  the  last  figure  was  named  his  eyes  would  open 
as  he  politely  added  "Sir"  to  each  answer.  Time  and  again 
I  have  tried  to  catch  him  in  the  multiplication  of  the  most 
confusing  figures,  such  as  789,  687,  431,  and  so  on,  by  the 
same  figures  rearranged.  Though  the  answer  ran  into 
quadrillions,  it  made  no  difference  to  him,  for  he  gave  the 
correct  answer  immediately.  In  the  course  of  time  many 
well-known  persons,  teachers,  professors  of  mathematics, 
and  others  came  to  investigate  this  phenomenon  or  to 
satisfy  curiosity.  He  would  have  been  as  profitable  on 
exhibition  as  was  Blind  Tom,  another  negro  prodigy,  but 
his  kind-hearted  and  proud  master  would  not  permit  his 

68 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ward  to  be  carried  around  as  a  money-making  show.  When 
the  war  was  over,  and  the  various  county-seats  of  the  South- 
em  states  were  garrisoned  by  negro  soldiers  (to  keep  us 
"rebels"  in  subjection),  the  white  captain  of  the  company 
stationed  at  Guntersville,  under  the  operations  of  the  fa- 
mous "Freedman's  Bureau,"  had  himself  appointed  guar- 
dian for  "Cap,"  and  was  preparing  for  a  tour  of  exhibition 
when  the  negro  died  of  cholera. 

I  have  always  regretted  that  his  brain  could  not  have 
been  submitted  to  the  careful  study  of  a  competent  anato- 
mist. As  he  was  mentally  deficient  in  the  ordinary  sense,  it 
is  probable  that  certain  brain  cells,  which  in  the  average 
human  beings  are  arranged  to  carry  on  the  various  functions 
of  this  puzzling  organ,  were  crowded  into  his  mathematical 
center,  enormously  developing  it. 

In  Blind  Tom's  case  the  center  of  music  or  harmony 
was  the  seat  of  this  extraordinary  development.  From 
what  I  could  see  in  the  study  of  this  wonderful  creature,  I 
felt  that  in  some  way  the  secret  was  related  to  the  decimal 
system.  Dreaming,  sometimes,  I  have  dared  to  think  that 
perhaps  the  brain  of  this  poor,  helpless  negro  was  more 
nearly  attuned  to  the  universal  harmony  than  ours,  which 
we  deem  normal ;  more  nearly  in  touch  with  that  mysterious 
influence  which  holds  planets  and  systems  in  unchanging 
relationship,  with  that  eternal  influence  which  we  of  our 
time  and  limited  knowledge  "call  God  and  know  no  more"! 

Another  phase  of  slave  life  in  Alabama  may  be  illustrated 
in  a  brief  sketch  of  "Uncle  Dan  Gilbreath,"  a  pure-blooded 
negro  of  the  prevailing  East  Coast  or  Somali  type.  He 
and  his  master  were  of  the  same  age  and  had  grown  up 
together  on  the  plantation.  They  had  played  and  hunted 
and  fished  in  their  younger  days  in  constant  companionship, 

69 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

When  the  young  man  came  into  his  inheritance  he  gave 
Dan  all  the  privileges  of  a  freeman.  Far  from  abusing  the 
confidence  and  affection  of  his  master,  he  was  industrious, 
conscientious,  and  had  developed  a  fair  degree  of  business 
ability.  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  a  slave  who,  as  the 
other  negroes  expressed  it,  had  "growed  up  in  de  white 
folks'  house"  would  labor  with  the  field-hands,  but  none 
the  less  Dan  made  himself  useful  and  profitable. 

Years  before  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  which  was 
at  first  only  effective  in  theory,  and  even  before  the  collapse 
of  the  Confederacy,  which  made  all  slaves  free,  Dan  had 
earned  enough  money  to  ransom  himself,  but  he  was  too 
wise  in  his  generation  to  accept  freedom  with  the  risks  of 
exportation  to  Liberia,  for  such  was  then  the  law.  There 
was  never  a  public  occasion  which  would  draw  a  crowd 
to  the  county-seat  at  which  Uncle  Dan  did  not  appear 
driving  his  yoke  of  steers  with  the  two-wheeled  cart  with 
melons  or  fruits  or  some  enticing  article  of  food  or  drink. 
When  fruits  were  out  of  season  he  had  the  art  of  making 
chicken-pies,  ginger-cakes,  and  cider  or  persimmon  beer, 
which  made  him  fam.ous  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  the 
county.  The  allurements  of  freedom  or  of  "reconstruction 
politics"  could  not  seduce  Dan  from  his  loyal  appreciation 
of  the  white  people  who  had  always  shown  him  kindness. 
Respected  by  all  classes,  he  lived  to  a  very  old  age.  In 
common  with  his  race  he  possessed  a  keen  sense  of  the  ludi- 
crous and  the  ability  to  describe  humorous  or  exciting  inci- 
dents. I  am  tempted  to  give  in  his  own  language  as  near 
as  I  can  remember  it  his  description  of  a  personal  experience 
when  the  Federal  artillerists  first  turned  their  guns  on  our 
quiet  village. 

The  incident  I  am  about  to  relate  occurred  on  the  27  th 

70 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  July,  1862.  That  portion  of  Alabama  north  of  the  Ten- 
nessee River  had  been  occupied  by  the  Federal  armies. 
The  Confederate  pickets  held  the  south  bank,  and  the  vil- 
lage of  Guntersville  was  a  mile  still  farther  south,  yet  in 
full  view  from  the  high  bluff  on  the  north  side  of  the  river. 
By  a  night  march  a  regiment  of  Union  infantry,  half  a 
regiment  of  cavalry,  and  a  section  of  artillery  reached  the 
river  opposite  the  town,  and  from  a  commanding  height 
had  two  six-poimder  Parrott  guns  in  position  and  trained 
upon  it. 

When  daylight  dawned  the  villagers  bestirred  themselves 
in  peacefiil  unconsciousness  of  the  storm  impending.  An 
hour  later.  Uncle  Dan,  seated  upon  the  cross-planl<:  of 
his  two-wheeled  ox-cart,  drove  down  Main  Street,  which, 
running  north  and  south,  was  for  half  a  mile  in  plain  view 
of  the  Union  artillerists  across  the  Tennessee.  Like  his 
master,  Dan  was  of  the  "old  school."  The  former  still 
held  to  the  customs  and  costumes  of  the  Virginia  planters 
from  whom  he  had  descended ;  and  Dan,  who  fell  heir  to  the 
costumes,  sat  erect  and  proud,  clad  in  the  long-tailed,  blue- 
cotton,  brass-buttoned  frock  coat  which  he  had  received 
from  his  owner.  Farther  on  he  turned  aside  and  drove  his 
panting  team  for  shelter  from  the  hot  July  sun  into  the  cool 
shade  behind  the  big  brick  edifice  which  served  not  only  as 
county  and  district  court-house,  but  as  town  hall,  Masonic 
lodge,  and  a  place  in  which  wandering  one-night  Thespians 
could  give  their  entertainments. 

Before  he  could  unhitch  his  oxen  preparatory  to  making 
the  usual  display  of  his  melons  the  unexpected  had  hap- 
pened— a  flash  of  lightning  from  a  cloudless  sky.  Not  even 
the  blast  from  Gabriel's  trumpet  sounding  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment could  have  startled  the  villagers  or  Uncle  Dan  more 

71 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

than  this  unlooked-for  boom  of  a  cannon,  the  reverbera- 
tion of  which,  while  waking  the  echoes  upon  the  mountain- 
sides, was  accompanied  by  the  whiz  of  a  shell  which  rent 
the  air  above  the  housetops,  exploding  with  deafening  noise 
and  sending  its  whirring  fragments  to  the  ground. 

The  white  citizens  of  the  village  knew  what  was  at  hand 
and  stood  not  upon  the  order  of  their  going,  but  fled  for 
safety  to  a  deep  ravine  which  crossed  Main  Street  near  the 
upper  end  of  the  village.^  There  a  hundred  or  more  women 
and  children  were  huddled  against  the  northern  slope  of  the 
hillside  when  Dan  flashed  by  in  flight  so  meteor-like  and 
swift  and  in  demoralization  so  complete  that  he  did  not 
know  whether  he  was  running  or  flying,  living  or  dead.  I 
can  do  no  better  than  repeat  the  story  as  nearly  as  possible 
in  Dan's  own  language: 

"When  de  fust  shell  busted  I  was  dat  skeered  I  mighty 
near  drapp'd  dead.  I  look  up  quick  for  thunder,  but  dar 
warn't  no  cloud  in  de  sky,  an'  I  knowed  den  it  warn't  a 
storm  a-comin',  but  I  didn't  have  no  notion  o'  what  it  wuz 
till  anoder  one  dess  like  it  come  a-whizzin'  high  up.  Dat 
en  hadn't  more'n  blowed  up  when  Jedge  Lott  he  run  out  o' 
de  Probit  Office  bar'headed  an'  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  an'  he 
holler  out,  'Run,  ever^^body  —  de  Yankees  is  a-shellin'!' 
When  I  hyeah  dat  I  kinder  come  to,  an'  I  say  ter  myse'f 
de  cou't-house  walls  is  mighty  thick,  an'  de  Yankees  is  a 
mile  off  on  de  oder  side  o'  de  ribber,  an'  when  dey  sees  dey 
ain't  nobody  hyeah  to  fight  back  dey  gwine  ter  git  tired  an' 
quit  shootin',  an'  den  I  kin  take  my  cyart  an'  go  on  home. 
Bless  my  soul,  chile,  befo'  de  words  was  out  'er  my  mouf 
sumpen  done  hit  de  cou't-house  'bout  ha'f-way  up,  an'  one 

1  Mrs.  S.  K.  Rayburn  and  another  citizen  were  killed  by  shells,  and  another 
wounded;  all  non-combatants. 

72 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

whole  side  o'  de  wall  jump  away  from  whar  it  wuz,  an* 
de  brickbats  dey  scatter  dess  like  a  drove  o'  pa'tridges. 
Some  ob  em  hit  me,  but  mos'  ob  em  hit  de  steers,  an'  dey 
broke  in  er  run,  an'  dess  as  dey  wuz  a-startin'  I  sez  to  my- 
se'f,  'Dis  ain't  no  place  fer  me';  so  I  lit  inter  de  waggin, 
an'  away  we  went,  lickerty-split.  Dem  steers  wuz  dat 
skeered  dey  couldn'  run  true,  an'  dess  as  we  swung  round 
inter  de  street,  one  wheel  it  hit  de  corner  pos'  ob  de  gro- 
cery stoah,  an'  de  cyart  turned  bottom  side  up  an'  frode 
me  an'  de  watermillions  plum  inter  de  middle  ob  de  road. 
Dar  warn't  no  time  for  foolishness,  so  I  riz  a-runnin',  an' 
lef  de  steers  standin'  dar  wid  de  yoke  turned  an'  de  water- 
millions  still  a-rollin',  and  I  tuk  up  de  street  so  fas'  I  dess 
fairly  shuck  myse'f  loose  from  de  face  ob  de  earth.  An',  my 
Lord!  honey,  dem  blasted  Yankees  dey  seed  me  a-runnin', 
an'  dey  p'int  de  cannon  at  me  as  I  kep'  right  on  up  de 
street,  an'  de  shells  kep'  a-hittin'  de  groun'  closer  an'  closer 
ter  me,  some  er-bouncin',  an'  some  er-bustin',  an  some  er- 
doin'  bofe  at  de  same  time  an'  er-kickin'  up  dus'  an'  grabbel 
till  I  thought  in  my  soul  I  nebber  would  git  ter  de  top  o'  de 
hill  by  de  ravine.  By  de  time  I  got  dar  an'  struck  de  slant 
gwine  down,  I  wuz  so  skeered  an'  wuz  a-workin'  my  laigs 
so  fas'  dat  I  warn't  sho'  but  what  I'd  plum  lef  de  groun', 
fer  when  I  look  back,  dar  wuz  de  tails  o'  my  coat  a-standin' 
straight  out  behin'  me  dess  like  dey  wuz  wings.  Den  I  shot 
pass  de  wimmen  an'  chillen  a-scrouchin'  down  in  de  ravine, 
an'  I  holler  out  dess  as  loud  as  I  cud  holler,  'White  folks,  fo' 
de  Lord's  sake,  tell  me,  is  I  runnin'  or  is  I  flyin'?'  Some 
o'  de  white  people  say,  'Stop,  Uncle  Dan;  dar  ain't  no  danger 
heah,'  an'  dat  make  me  know  I  wuz  still  a-livin';  but.  Lord 
bless  yer,  chile,  my  laigs  was  dat  deaf  dey  couldn't  hear 
em;  an'  dey  kep'  right  on." 
6 


IX 

THE  POINT  OF  VIEW — HISTORY  OF  AMERICAN  SLAVERY  AND 
THE  ABOLITION  CRUSADERS — SOME  TRUTHS  ABOUT  JOHN 
BROWN  AND  THE  SO-CALLED  MARTYRDOM 

In  the  discussion  of  slavery  and  the  movement  for  its 
abolition  in  the  United  States  one  may  be  open  to  the  criti- 
cism, however  trite,  that  one's  convictions  depend  largely 
upon  the  point  of  view.  While  my  viewpoint  is  Southern, 
it  is  that  of  one  convinced  early  in  life  of  the  moral  wrong 
and  economic  unwisdom  of  chattel  slavery. 

My  father  was  bom  and  reared  in  a  Northern  com- 
munity, and  his  training  and  early  associations  were  with 
those  who  believed  in  universal  freedom.  My  mother  came 
of  a  family  of  Southern  emancipationists.  Her  father,  John 
Allan,  a  Presbyterian  minister,  liberated  his  slaves,  his  six 
children  jointly  signing  the  articles  of  manumission.  In 
association  with  James  G.  Birney,  who  twice  preceded  Fre- 
mont and  Lincoln  as  the  nominee  for  the  Presidency  on  the 
Abolition  platform,  he  organized  in  Huntsville,  Alabama, 
one  of  the  early  societies  of  Southern  emancipationists,  and 
published  there  an  abolition  newspaper.  There  were  in 
1835  eight  emancipation  societies  organized  in  seven  of 
the  wealthy  and  populous  agricultural  counties  in  the 
Tennessee  Valley  in  northern  Alabama.  In  Lawrence 
County,  where  one  of  these  existed,  an  uncle  of  mine,  David 
A.  Smith,  in  1838  liberated  all  of  his  slaves  and  transported 

74 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

them  to,  and  provided  them  with  homes  in,  Morgan  County, 
Illinois. 

The  gravest  of  the  many  errors  made  by  the  Northern 
aboHtionists  was  their  failure  to  appreciate  the  strength  and 
the  possibilities  of  the  Southern  emancipation  movement. 
It  was  undoubtedly  well  under  way  and  gaining  strength 
steadily.  The  example  and  teaching  of  Washington,  Jef- 
ferson, Madison,  Monroe,  the  Randolphs,  and  a  host  of  the 
great  leaders  of  Virginia,  to  whom  the  whole  South  looked 
for  guidance,  had  exercised  a  profound  influence  on  the  best 
minds  of  the  slave-holding  class.  My  kinsman  George 
Wythe  not  only  freed  his  slaves,  but,  in  order  to  show  the 
possibilities  of  the  race,  gave  one  of  his  young  negro  lads 
a  classical  education.  This  influence  was  widely  felt  in 
North  Carolina,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Alabama.  In 
1827  the  legislature  of  Alabama  enacted  a  "law  forbidding 
the  importation  of  slaves  for  barter  or  hire."  As  early  as 
1722  the  Virginia  assembly  had  authorized  private  eman- 
cipations, and  in  1778  this  assembly  prohibited  slave  impor- 
tations, imposing  a  fine  of  five  thousand  dollars  for  each 
offense.  Ballagh,  in  his  history,  says,  "Virginia  had  thus 
the  honor  of  being  the  first  political  community  in  the 
civilized  world  to  prohibit  the  pernicious  traffic."  After 
Virginia  in  1784  ceded  the  Northwest  Territory  to  the 
United  States,  her  delegates  in  Congress  were  the  leading 
spirits  in  securing  the  adoption  of  the  ordinance  for  ever 
excluding  slavery  from  that  vast  empire. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution  there  were  less  than  three 
thousand  freed  negroes  in  the  state.  By  18 10  there  were 
more  than  thirty  thousand.  By  i860,  despite  the  deporta- 
tion of  thousands  whose  masters  had  freed  them  and  settled 
them  in  Liberia  and  elsewhere,  nearly  sixty  thousand  freed 

75 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

negroes  still  remained.  Mr.  BaUagh,  author  of  The  History 
oj  Slavery,  estimates  that  Virginian  planters  had  manu- 
mitted up  to  that  time,  "without  a  penny's  compensation, 
one  hundred  thousand  of  these  bondsmen,"  the  money 
value  approximating  one  hundred  million  dollars.  Of  this 
period  W.  Gordon  McCabe,  in  his  careful  review  ^  of  this 
subject,  says:  "Unfortunately,  when  the  hopes  of  Vir- 
ginia emancipationists  were  highest  during  the  famous 
session  devoted  to  'Slavery  Debates'  the  rabid  abolition- 
ists of  the  North,  through  secret  emissaries,  flooded  the 
state  with  abusive  and  incendiar\'-  pamphlets  calling  on  the 
slaves  to  rise  and  re-enact  the  horrors  of  Haiti  and  San 
Domingo.  One  of  these — the  notorious  Walker  pamphlet — 
referred  to  'Haiti,  the  glory  of  the  blacks  and  the  terror 
of  tyrants.'"  Then  came  the  Southampton  Insurrection, 
in  1 83 1,  an  event  of  horror  which  created  intense  excite- 
ment throughout  the  South.  Speaking  for  Virginia,  McCabe 
says:  "The  reaction  was  immediate,  even  the  strongest 
antislavery  advocates  were  disgusted  and  repelled,  and  the 
movement  collapsed."  In  the  campaign  of  vilification 
which  dealt  this  stunning  blow  to  the  Southern  emancipa- 
tionists the  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation,  edited  by 
Benjamin  Lundy,  of  Baltimore,  and  the  Liberator,  founded 
by  William  Lloyd  Garrison  in  Massachusetts,  were  promi- 
nently aggressive.  Passing  from  words  to  deeds,  the  "Un- 
derground Railroad,"  a  numerous,  active,  and  wealthy  or- 
ganization, the  outspoken  business  of  which  was  the  unlaw- 
ful enticing  away  of  slaves,  began  its  operations.  These 
openly  disregarded  the  Constitution  (the  basis  of  the 
Union),  which  guaranteed  protection  in  property  of  slaves, 
and  by  mob -rule  and  the  enactment  of  state  laws  per- 

'  London  Saturday  Review,  March  5,  1910. 
76 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

sistently  and  successfully  set  at  naught  the  laws  of  Con- 
gress. 

Then  came  the  armed  invasion  of  Virginia  by  John 
Brown  and  his  band  of  outlaws,  and  with  this  effort  to  arm 
a  servile  race  and  repeat  the  Southampton  Massacre  on  a 
large  scale  secession  was  made  possible  and  the  hope  of 
peace  was  gone.  Living  as  I  did  through  this  period  of 
intense  excitement,  a  close  observer  of  events  as  they  were 
happening,  I  am  convinced  that  but  for  this  murderous 
foray  the  leaders  of  secession  in  the  South  could  not 
have  carried  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and 
Alabama  out  of  the  Union;  and  without  these  there 
would  have  been  no  Southern  Confederacy  and  no  Civil 
War. 

Slavery  was  already  doomed,  and  a  bloody  war  was  not 
necessary  for  its  extinction. 

A  large  majority  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  South  did  not  own 
a  slave,  and  had  no  selfish  interest  in  perpetuating  slavery. 
Fleming,  the  historian,  says  that  as  late  as  i860  a  majority 
of  the  white  people  of  Alabama  were  opposed  to  slavery. 
They  realized  that  the  verdict  of  the  higher  civilization  was 
against  it;  and,  although  the  movement  for  emancipation 
which  at  one  period  was  gaining  a  strong  and  influential 
backing  in  the  slave-holding  section  was  temporarily  checked 
in  the  resentment  which  followed  the  mistaken  policy  of  the 
militant  abolitionists  of  the  North,  it  could  not  have  been 
long  deferred. 

Mr.  Benton  said  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  1829:  "I 
can  truly  say  that  slavery,  a  hereditary  institution,  de- 
scended upon  us  from  our  ancestors,  has  but  few  advocates 
or  defenders  in  the  slave-holding  states,  and  would  have 
fewer  if  those  who  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  subject 

77 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

would  only  let  us  alone."  *  I  have  no  doubt  that  but  for 
this  meddlesomeness  to  which  Benton  refers,  the  Southern 
people,  aided  by  the  kindly  sympathy  of  their  Northern 
kinsmen,  would  long  before  this  have  carried  out  a  humane 
plan  of  emancipation,  giving  the  African  race  a  home  of 
their  own  in  a  "territory  where,  secure  from  external 
dangers,  they  would  enjoy  civil  and  political  liberty." 
(Report  of  the  Virginia  Committee.)  How  much  better 
for  both  blacks  and  whites  would  this  have  been  than  the 
long,  bloody,  and  cruel  war,  which,  as  I  maintain,  only  the 
aggressive  abolitionists  made  possible. 

The  introduction  of  negro  chattel  slavery  in  the  North 
American  colonies  dates  from  1619,  when  a  Dutch  ship  sold 
to  the  settlers  along  the  James  River,  in  Virginia,  a  small 
cargo  of  slaves.  There  followed  other  consignments,  dis- 
tributed along  the  Atlantic  coast,  imtil  by  1700  African 
slavery  existed  in  all  of  the  thirteen  original  colonies,  these 
aliens  forming  then  about  one-sixteenth  of  the  entire  popu- 
lation. Vessels  owned  chiefly  by  skippers  from  New  Eng- 
land and  New  York  took  up  the  profitable  traffic,  with 
Newport  and  Bristol,  Rhode  Island,  as  the  chief  ports  of 
distribution  in  the  North,  and  Charleston  and  Savannah 
in  the  South.  Although  in  the  more  fertile  sections  of 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jersey  negroes  were 
purchased  in  considerable  numbers  by  individual  owners 
for  work  upon  the  larger  plantations,  in  New  England  and 
in  the  states  north  of  Maryland  in  general  ownership  was 
more  frequently  limited  to  a  single  slave  or  to  one  family, 
the  members  of   which  performed  the  duties  of  house-ser- 

^With  this  conviction,  Benton  would  doubtless  have  approved  Wendell 
Phillips's  assertion  that  a  New-Englander's  definition  of  hell  is  a  place 
where  every  man  has  to  attend  to  his  own  business. 

78 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

vants.  It  soon  became  evident  that  the  rigorous  climate  of 
the  North  was  unsuitable  to  the  profitable  employment  of 
a  race  born  and  reared  under  tropical  conditions  and  sud- 
denly subjected  to  the  long  winters,  the  frosts  and  snows  of 
the  North  Atlantic  colonies. 

In  the  lower  temperate  zone  and  nearer  the  equator  in 
the  southern  settlements,  where  a  semitropical  climate 
prevailed,  profitable  employment  for  negroes  was  found; 
and  hither,  in  obedience  to  the  inexorable  law  of  demand 
and  supply,  the  system  of  slavery  gravitated. 

It  has  been  stated  with  great  positiveness  by  certain 
writers  that  the  introduction  of  the  cotton-gin,  invented  by 
Eli  Whitney  in  1794,  by  giving  renewed  impetus  to  the 
cultivation  of  cotton,  increased  the  demand  for  slave  labor 
as  a  necessity  for  its  production  and  added  largely  to  the 
money  value  of  slaves.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  for  the 
thirty-six  years  following  this  invention  the  annual  increase 
in  the  number  of  bales  produced  was  less  than  thirty  thou- 
sand, I  am  not  willing  to  accept  the  statement.  In  1800 
the  output  was  two  hundred  and  ten  thousand  bales,  and  the 
milhon-bale  mark  was  not  reached  im.til  1830.  Meanwhile, 
during  the  forty  years  from  1790  to  1830,  the  number  of 
negro  slaves  increased  from  seven  hundred  thousand  to 
two  millions.  As  the  African  trade  ceased  in  1807,  it  may 
be  inferred  that  conditions  in  the  South  were  favorable  to 
procreation  in  this  alien  race.  The  market  price  of  negroes 
had  risen  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  dollars,  in  early  colonial 
days,  to  about  five  hundred  dollars  in  1830,  and  they  con- 
tinued to  become  more  valuable,  until  by  i860  a  "prime 
field-hand"  brought  from  one  thousand  to  fifteen  himdred 
dollars.  Other  causes  than  cotton  must  be  looked  for  to 
explain  the  rise  in  value.     That  the  negro  was  not  essential 

79 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  the  cultivation  of  this  great  crop  has  been  amply  demon- 
strated in  late  years  by  the  millions  of  bales  produced  an- 
nually in  vast  areas  of  the  South  where  only  white  labor  is 
engaged.  What  is  true  of  cotton  is  equally  true  of  rice  and 
cane,  and  but  for  the  unfortunate  presence  of  the  blacks 
the  Southern  country  would  long  ago  have  swarmed  with 
white  laborers  of  the  same  intelligence  and  thrift  that  have 
created  the  wealthy,  prosperous,  and  thickly  populated 
Northwest. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  slavery  had  existed  in 
practically  every  nation  of  the  earth  since  the  dawn  of  his- 
tory, and  that  even  in  the  early  settlement  of  America  white 
persons  from  Great  Britain  had  been  sold  and  indentured 
as  slaves  to  the  colonists,  yet  the  vast  majority  of  these 
hardy  pioneers  had  sought  the  wilderness  for  a  greater  lib- 
erty than  the  older  civilization  allowed,  and  it  was  to  be 
expected  that  from  the  very  beginning  African  slavery  would 
meet  with  strong  protest  and  formidable  opposition.  Theirs 
was  the  broad  and  just  contention  that,  however  humane- 
ly practised,  chattel  slavery  was  wrong;  that  involuntary 
servitude  was  repugnant  to  the  instinctive  love  and  natural 
right  of  liberty ;  and  that  ownership  as  a  chattel  to  be  leased 
or  sold  permitted  the  infliction  of  bodily  punishments  and 
the  enforced  severance  of  the  family  relation  which  were 
cruel   and  inhuman. 

As  far  back  as  1641  A'lassachusetts  forbade  the  importa- 
tion of  African  slaves,  and  Rhode  Island  followed  her  sister 
colony's  example  in  1652;  but  these  regulations  could  not 
then  be  successfully  enforced,  and  the  traffic  and  slavery 
continued  for  more  than  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years. 
In  1688  a  society  of  Friends  in  Pennsylvania  made  public 
protest  against  the  growing  practice  of  slavery,  but  it  was 

80 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

not  until  1775  that  the  first  abolition  society  was  formally 
organized  (in  Pennsylvania),  with  Benjamin  Franklin  as 
president. 

The  first  state  to  enact  emancipation  was  Vermont, 
which  in  1777  freed  all  slaves  at  majority  (twenty-one  years). 
Pennsylvania  followed  in  1780,  fixing  the  age  at  twenty- 
eight;  and  Massachusetts  in  the  same  year  freed  all  slaves 
without  regard  to  age.  New  Hampshire  in  1783,  Rhode 
Island  and  Connecticut  in  1784,  New  York  in  1799,  and 
New  Jersey  in  1804  enacted  schemes  of  gradual  emancipa- 
tion. In  1807  Congress  absolutely  forbade  the  further  im- 
portation of  slaves  into  the  United  States. 

By  1820  slavery,  formally  recognized  by  the  Constitution, 
the  compact  of  union,  which  guaranteed  protection  to  slaves 
as  property,  was  accepted  as  a  permanent  institution  in  the 
states  then  existing  south  of  the  Mason  and  Dixon  line, 
although  at  the  North  the  antislavery  organizations  had 
already  grown  in  numbers  and  influence  to  formidable 
proportions.  In  this  year  slavery  first  came  prominently 
before  the  American  people  as  a  political  issue.  The  pro- 
slavery  politicians,  in  the  eft'ort  to  counteract  the  growing 
influence  of  the  champions  of  emancipation,  succeeded  in 
having  Missouri  admitted  as  a  slave  state.  The  opposition, 
however,  was  strong  enough  to  compel  a  "Compromise," 
which,  while  permitting  slavery  in  Missouri,  excluded  it 
from  all  the  rest  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  north  of  a  line 
which  from  the  Mississippi  River  followed  westward  the 
36°  30'  degree  of  north  latitude,  which  line  was  the  south- 
em  boundary  of  Missouri. 

A  period  comparatively  free  from  agitation  followed  the 
Missouri  Compromise  from  182 1  to  1836,  when  Texas, 
having  declared  its  independence  of  Mexico,  asked  to  be 

81 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

taken. into  the  Union  as  a  slave  state.  The  antislavery 
advocates,  North  and  South,  resisted  this  proposition  so 
successfully  that  the  Lone  Star  State  was  not  admitted  until 
1845.  In  1854,  under  the  leadership  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
of  Illinois,  the  spokesman  of  Democracy,  North  as  well  as 
South,  the  proslavery  politicians  made  the  fatal  blunder 
of  reopening  the  fight  for  the  further  extension  of  this 
institution  in  the  territories,  and,  although  they  succeeded 
in  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  in  passing  the 
Kansas -Nebraska  bill,  which  in  substance  left  it  to  the 
bona-fide  settlers  to  determine  by  popular  vote  whether 
or  not  slavery  should  be  permitted  in  the  states  to  be  ad- 
mitted, they  sealed  their  own  doom. 

It  was  this  action  which  precipitated  the  "Kansas  con- 
flict" and  made  of  this  territory  for  several  years  the  battle- 
ground between  the  contending  forces  of  slavery  and  anti- 
slavery.  In  this  period  the  generally  accepted  laws  of 
God  and  man  which  are  supposed  to  govern  a  Christian 
civilization  were  in  large  measure  suspended,  and  the  so- 
called  "higher  law"  was  substituted.  It  seemed  a  ready 
transition  from  the  enthusiast  to  the  zealot,  from  the  zealot 
to  the  fanatic;  and  these,  given  as  of  old  to  the  wildest 
exaggeration  of  their  own  importance  in  the  reformation 
of  their  kind,  flattering  themselves  into  the  delusion  that 
they  were  ordained  of  God  for  the  accomplishment  of  a 
great  and  self-imposed  purpose,  ran  amuck  in  bloodshed 
and  robbery.  "Bleeding  Kansas"  became  the  storm-center 
of  the  great  controversy,  around  and  over  which  since  1820 
the  darkening  clouds  of  sectionalism  had  been  gathering; 
and  from  this  center,  in  ever-widening  circle,  spread  a  cy- 
clone of  insanity  which  swept  over  North  and  South  alike 
in  its  maddening  progress.     Reason,  like  a  lightship  parted 

82 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

from  its  moorings,  was  carried  away  to  be  lost  in  the  stormy- 
sea  of  differing  opinions.  Forbearance  and  charity  and 
kindly  argument  as  to  right  and  wrong  gave  way  to  reck- 
less and  passionate  assertion  and  to  the  bitter  speech  of 
prejudice,  and  conscience  became  dulled  to  that  de- 
plorable degree  which  permitted  the  end  to  justify  the 
means. 

Out  of  this  turmoil  emerged  a  weird,  red-handed  specter 
in  human  form  whose  name  but  for  his  lawless  deeds  in 
Kansas  would  never  have  crossed  the  boundaries  of  that  fair 
State  had  he  not  become  the  agent  in  one  of  the  most 
nefarious  plots  recorded  in  history.  A  group  of  men  of 
intelligence,  position,  and  wealth  aided  him  in  the  armed  in- 
vasion of  a  peaceful  and  law-abiding  community.  Brown's 
purpose  was  the  treasonable  capture  of  the  United  States 
arsenal  and  the  appropriation  of  government  property  to 
an  unlawful  purpose,  the  robbery  of  the  houses  of  law- 
abiding  citizens,  and  murder.  He  sought  to  incite  a  wide- 
spread slave  insurrection  and  the  consequent  massacre  of 
thousands  of  helpless  women  and  children.  This  wicked 
deed,  known  as  the  "Harper's  Ferry  Raid,"  made  secession 
possible  and  brought  on  the  Civil  War. 

The  world  knows  that  the  active  leader  of  this  enterprise 
was  John  Brown.  It  may  not  know  that  among  those  who 
very  substantially  aided  him  were  such  men  as  Gerrit 
Smith,  George  L.  Stearns,  Theodore  Parker,  Dr.  S.  G. 
Howe,  Frederick  Douglass,  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Judge  Thomas 
Russell,  T.  W.  Higginson,  Edwin  Morton,  and  F.  G.  Mer- 
riam.  Those  who  aided  Brown  practically  all  denied  any 
intention  to  incite  a  servile  insurrection;  yet  for  what  other 
purpose  did  Brown  carry  one  thousand  pikes  than  to  arm 
such  slaves  as  could  not  yet  use  the  guns  to  be  taken  by 

83 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

force  from  the  United  States  arsenal?  The  civilized  world 
cried  out  at  the  shame  of  it.  Brown  had  declared  it 
were  "better  that  a  whole  generation  of  men,  women, 
and  children  should  be  wiped  out  than  that  slavery- 
should  endure."  He  also  said  after  his  capture^:  "I  knew 
the  negroes  would  rally  to  my  standard.  If  I  had  only 
got  the  thing  fairly  started,  you  Virginians  would  have 
seen  sights  that  would  have  opened  your  eyes,  and  I  tell 
you  if  I  was  free  this  moment  and  had  five  hundred  negroes 
around  me  I  would  put  these  irons  on  Wise  himself  before 
Saturday  night."  He  had  said  to  Frederick  Douglass, 
"When  I  strike,  the  bees  will  swarm."  What  more  positive 
evidence  of  Brown's  purpose  than  is  set  forth  in  Gerrit 
Smith's  letter  of  August  27,  1859,  only  a  few  weeks  before 
the  invasion  of  Virginia: 

"It  is  perhaps  too  late  to  bring  slavery  to  an  end  by 
peaceful  means.  The  feeling  among  the  blacks  that  they 
must  deliver  themselves  gains  strength  with  fearful  rapid- 
ity. The  South  would  not  respect  her  own  Jefferson's  pre- 
diction of  servile  insurrection,  and  is  it  entirely  certain  that 
these  insurrections  will  be  put  down  promptly?  Will  tele- 
graphs and  railroads  be  too  swift  for  even  the  swiftest  in- 
surrections? Remember  that  telegraphs  and  railroads  can 
be  rendered  useless  in  an  hour.  Remember,  too,  that  many 
who  would  be  glad  to  face  the  insurgents  would  be  busy 
transporting  their  wives  and  daughters  to  places  where 
they  would  be  safe,"  etc.  To  this  letter  Sanborn  adds: 
"He  knew  what  Brown's  piirpose  was,  and  his  last  contribu- 
tion of  money  to  Brown's  camp-chest  was  sent  about  the 
time  this  letter  was  written"  (page  545).  And  what  else 
could  Dr.  Howe  have  in  mind  than  an  insurrection  of  slaves 

^Lije  and  Letters  of  John  Brown.     By  F.  B.  Sanborn.     Page  572. 

84 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

when  he  wrote  that  he  trembled  at  the  fate  which  might 
befall  his  friend  in  the  South  ? 

Strongest  of  all  the  evidence,  to  my  mind,  is  the  action 
of  many  of  Brown's  backers,  who  promptly  fled  beyond  the 
borders  of  their  own  country — the  country  to  whose  laws 
they  owed  obedience.  True,  they  had  begun  their  course 
with  an  earnest  and  laudable  purpose,  and  at  first  by  open 
and  honorable  methods  of  protest  and  argument  sought  to 
free  the  slaves  in  the  South.  Under  the  excitement  of  a 
passionate  antagonism  they  had  advanced  by  rapid  strides 
from  enthusiasm  to  zeal  and  from  zeal  to  fanaticism,  which 
in  many  cases  blinded  their  perception  of  right  and  justified 
in  their  minds  even  horrible  and  bloody  means  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  end  they  had  in  view. 

When  the  news  was  heard  of  the  failure  of  Brown's  ne- 
farious plot,  Gerrit  Smith  retired  to  an  insane  asylum  at 
Utica,  New  York.  As  late  as  1874  he  attempted  some  ex- 
planation. Still  later,  when  Sanborn  notified  him  of  his 
probable  utterance  on  the  subject,  he  wrote:  "If  you  could 
defer  your  contemplated  work  until  after  my  death  you 
would  lay  me  under  great  obHgations  to  your  kind- 
ness." 

Scarcely  less  pitiable  was  the  position  of  Dr.  S.  G.  Howe. 
Referring  to  a  visit,  shortly  before  the  John  Brown  raid,  to 
Wade  Hampton's  plantation,  he  said  he  shuddered  to  think 
of  what  might  have  happened  to  these  people,  of  whose 
hospitality  he  had  been  lately  the  recipient,  as  a  result  of 
this  foray  into  the  South.  Dr.  Howe  promptly  went  to 
Canada.  He  wrote  on  November  4,  1859:  "Rumor  has 
mingled  my  name  with  the  events  at  Harper's  Ferry.  That 
event  was  unforeseen  and  unexpected  by  me."  When,  at 
last,  he  appeared  before  the  Mason  committee  he  tried  to 

85 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

convince  them  that  the  last  fifty  dollars  he  gave  went 
toward  the  purchase  of  the  Thompson  farm  for  Brown.' 

Commenting  on  Dr.  Howe's  conversation  in  the  summer 
of  1859  with  John  Brown,  Mrs.  Adams,  Brown's  daughter, 
writes:  'Tt  was  after  father  had  become  weary  and  even 
discouraged  with  begging  for  money  and  men  to  carry  out 
his  plan  that  he  made  up  his  mind  to  confiscate  property 
that  the  slave  or  his  ancestors  had  been  compelled  to  earn 
for  others — property  that  he  needed  to  subsist  on.  At  a 
former  time  when  Dr.  Howe  was  parting  from  father,  he 
gave  him  a  little  walnut  box  with  a  fine  Smith  &  Wesson 
revolver  in  it.  I  have  it  still."  "Now,  in  making  this  gift, 
Dr.  Howe  fully  expected  Captain  Brown  to  break  the  law 
against  carrying  concealed  weapons,  and  possibly  the  com- 
mandment 'Thou  shalt  not  kill'"  (Villard,  pages  181-2). 

George  L.  Steams  fled  to  Canada,  and  later,  according 
to  Sanborn,  twisted  the  truth  out  of  shape  in  his  efforts  to 
square  his  conscience  and  escape  indictment.  The  Rev- 
erend Theodore  Parker  remained  abroad,  and  died  there. 
This  exponent  of  the  Divine  Law  in  a  letter  to  Judge 
Russell,  dated  April,  1857,  wrote  as  follows: 

"My  dear  Judge, — If  John  Brown  falls  into  the  hands 
of  the  marshal  from  Kansas  he  is  sure  of  the  gallows  or 
of  something  worse.  If  I  were  in  his  position  I  should  shoot 
dead  any  man  who  attempted  to  arrest  me  for  those  alleged 
crimes;  then  I  should  be  tried  by  a  Massachusetts  jury 
and  be  acquitted."  Then,  with  the  exquisite  capacity  for 
dodging  which  many  developed  at  about  this  time,  he 
added:  ''P.S.  I  don't  advise  J.  B.  to  do  this;  but  it  is 
what  I  would  do." 

The  high  regard  for  morals  and  law  which  prevailed  in 

» John  Brown,  Fifty  Years  After.     By  Oswald  Garrison  Villard. 

86 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Massachusetts  at  this  period  in  the  minds  disordered  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  is  evident  in  this  letter  from  a  preacher 
to  a  judge.  Edwin  Morton  hastened  to  inform  Sanborn 
that  important  letters  had  been  "buried  under  a  brick 
walk  leading  to  Mr.  Smith's  door,"  and  then  took  refuge  in 
Switzerland,  where  at  length  he  died. 

Judge  Thomas  Russell's  activities  seemed  to  have  ceased 
when  he  did  not  accept  his  friend's  offer  of  "two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  and  a  good  big  fee  besides  in  personal 
property,''  which  Brown  had  accumulated  overnight  from 
the  silver  and  valuables  of  Colonel  Washington  and  other 
citizens  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  Frederick 
Douglass  lost  no  time  in  crossing  the  boundary-line  between 
Canada  and  the  United  States,  and  found  a  residence  with 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  between  him  and  his  native  land.  Francis 
J.  Merriam  alone  demonstrated  in  a  measure  the  courage 
of  his  convictions  by  venturing  as  far  as  the  Maryland  side 
of  the  danger-line  when  the  attack  was  made,  whence  with 
Owen  Brown  (also  with  the  wagon-train)  he  ran  away  at  an 
early  and  propitious  moment  and  escaped  over  the  moun- 
tains. F.  B.  Sanborn,  instead  of  following  the  object  of 
his  obsession  to  glory  and  the  grave  in  Virginia,  fled  to 
Canada.  Venturing  back  to  the  Concord  Circle,  when  he 
and  his  friends  thought  the  danger  had  passed,  he  was 
arrested  by  officers  of  the  law  and  released  (not  by  a  mob 
— only  "one  hundred  and  fifty  men  and  women  present") 
by  the  Massachusetts  construction  of  justice  and  law. 

In  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  March  15,  1878,  Sanborn 
lays  bare  some  facts  connected  with  this  scheme  which  it 
would  appear  he  had  hesitated  to  make  public  until  every- 
body else  concerned  was  dead. 

He  writes:  "My  own  first  knowledge  of  the  plans  of  John 

87 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Brown  for  invading  the  South  and  forcibly  emancipating 
slaves,  the  same  plans  he  afterward  attempted  to  execute 
in  Virginia,  was  obtained  from  Brown  in  Gerrit  Smith's 
house  at  Peterboro,  February  22,  1858,  and  in  the  presence 
of  Mr.  Smith  himself,  with  whom  I  discussed  them  fully 
on  that  day,  the  following  day,  and  again  on  the  24th  of 
May,  1858,  at  the  Revere  House  in  Boston.  We  two — Mr. 
Smith  then  sixty-one  years  old,  and  myself  a  little  turned 
twenty-six — on  the  23d  of  February,  1858,  at  about  the  hour 
of  sunset,  did  deliberately  and  earnestly  engage  with  each 
other  that  we  would  stand  by  and  support  John  Brown  in 
his  undertaking.  Up  to  the  day  of  John  Brown's  capture 
at  Harper's  Ferry  in  October,  1859,  that  engagement  was 
faithfully  kept. 

"Neither  of  us,  probably,  was  ever  fully  or  coolly  con- 
vinced of  the  wisdom  of  his  scheme.  At  no  time  during  the 
nineteen  months  between  February  19,  1858,  and  October 
18,  1859,  did  Mr.  Smith  cease  to  aid  the  plan.  When  he 
wrote  me  that  'as  things  now  stand  it  seems  to  me  it  would 
be  madness  to  attempt  to  execute  it'  (May  7,  1858)  he  had 
just  given  money  to  aid  it,  and  within  a  month  afterward 
he  gave  money  again.  He  allowed  Brown  to  take  the  re- 
sponsibility of  failure.  Such  was  then  my  opinion,  and  when 
Smith  met  at  his  own  room  in  the  Revere  House,  Boston, 
May  24,  1858,  with  Theodore  Parker,  Dr.  Howe,  George  L. 
Stearns,  and  myself,  to  decide  whether  Brown  should  be 
allowed  to  go  on  at  that  time,  Mr.  Smith  was  an  active  par- 
ticipant in  the  discussion.  It  resulted  in  sending  Brown 
back  to  Kansas  until  such  a  time  as  he  could  more  safely 
undertake  his  Southern  campaign.  It  was  understood  that 
Brown  should  go  to  Kansas  for  the  summer  and  autumn  of 
1858,  but  should  be  aided  to  begin  his  Southern  campaign 

88 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  the  winter  and  spring  of  1859,  when  two  or  three  thou- 
sand dollars  should  be  raised  for  him  by  Messrs.  Stearns, 
Smith,  and  the  rest  of  us.  In  accordance  with  this  agree- 
ment, in  the  following  spring,  April,  1859,  Brown  presented 
himself  at  Peterboro  after  delivering  his  twelve  forcibly 
emancipated  Missouri  slaves  in  Canada  and  received  from 
Mr.  Smith  there  a  subscription  of  four  hundred  dollars. 
With  some  of  this  money  Brown  paid  in  part  for  his  pikes 
at  Collinsville,  Connecticut,  to  arm  the  slaves  of  Virginia. 

"Again,  in  August,  1859,  when  Brown  wrote  me  from 
Chambersburg  that  he  still  wanted  three  hundred  dollars 
with  which  to  begin  the  attack,  I  sent  his  letter  to  Smith, 
who  at  once  sent  Brown  a  draft  for  a  hundred  dollars  on 
the  State  Bank  of  Albany.  I  am  certain  that  this  was  sent 
with  a  full  general  knowledge  of  what  Brown  would  do 
with  it.  How,  then,  could  Mr.  Smith,  G,  L.  Stearns,  and 
Dr.  Howe  deny,  as  they  all  did,  that  they  knew  of  the 
Harper's  Ferry  attack — simply  because  they  did  not  know, 
or  guess,  that  Brown  meant  to  begin  it?  We  expected 
he  would  go  farther  west,  into  a  region  less  accessible,  where 
his  movements  might  escape  notice  for  weeks  except  as 
the  alleged  acts  of  some  marauding  party.  In  this  respect, 
and  in  this  alone,  as  far  as  I  know,  he  changed  his  plans  of 
1858,  which  he  fully  explained.  Being  called  to  testify  at 
Washington,  the  two  last  named  (as  they  both  ^  told  me) 
found  the  questions  of  the  Senate  committee  so  unskilfully 
framed  that  they  could  without  literal  falsehood  answer 
as  they  did.  I  do  not  say  they  were  justified  in  this,  but 
such  was  their  own  opinion.  Probably  Gerrit  Smith  also  felt 
justified  at  the  time  in  making  public  statements  which 
told  a  part  of  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole.     He  was  not  a 

7  1  Steams  and  Howe. 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

witness  at  Washington,  being  an  asylum  patient  at  Utica; 
but  in  i860  and  again  in  1867  he  pubHshed  papers  which, 
had  I  seen  them  in  manuscript,  as  I  did  that  of  1874,  I 
should  have  protested  against  their  publication." 

The  Southern  people  were  fully  alive  to  the  significance 
of  this  attempt  by  John  Brown  and  his  sympathizers  in 
the  North  to  arm  and  liberate  the  slaves.  Had  they  suc- 
ceeded the  enterprise  would  have  led  to  a  wide-spread  ser- 
vile insurrection.  Of  several  such  uprisings  in  Virginia  the 
details  of  one  shall  be  here  given.  The  leader  of  this  in- 
surrection was  a  negro,  Nat  Turner,  thirty-one  years  old, 
who  had  been  kindly  reared  in  the  Turner  family  of  South- 
ampton County,  Virginia.'  He  had  been  taught  to  read; 
he  professed  religion,  became  a  preacher  of  the  Baptist 
sect,  and  was  intrusted  as  overseer  of  the  work  and  in 
the  management  of  the  other  slaves  on  the  plantation.  Of 
the  kindly  nature  of  the  treatment  to  which  he  was  ac- 
customed it  is  known  that  upon  his  feigning  sickness  on 
the  Sunday  of  the  outbreak  the  wife  of  his  owner  carried 

*  Professor  William  S.  Drewry,'  after  a  most  exhaustive  study  of  the 
matter,  shows  that  undoubtedly  this  fanatical  negro,  of  more  than  ordinary 
intelligence,  had  been  informed  of  the  uprising  of  the  slaves  in  Haiti  and 
San  Domingo,  and  had  persuaded  himself  that  the  success  of  that  insurrection 
could  be  repeated  in  the  Southern  states.  In  1793  a  crowd  of  refugees  es- 
caping from  Haiti  arrived  in  Baltimore,  bringing  with  them  about  six  hun- 
dred slaves.  Some  of  these  refugees  settled  in  Southampton  County.  In 
1800  and  1801,  and  in  succeeding  years,  rebeUious  slaves  in  various  sections  of 
Virginia  confessed  that  they  had  been  inspired  by  the  hope  that  the  upris- 
ing in  Haiti  might  be  successfully  repeated.  Of  these  earher  outbreaks,  the 
one  in  Henrico  County  in  1800  was  the  most  formidable.  Moreover,  the 
militant  abolitionists  of  the  North  were  active  in  encouraging  the  negroes  to 
insurrection.  Benjamin  Lundy,  of  Baltimore,  editor  of  the  Genius  of  Universal 
Emancipation,  published  and  circulated  in  1828  a  detailed  history  of  these 
various  insurrections,  and  in  1830  the  celebrated  "Walker  Pamphlet"  was 
secretly  distributed,  urging  the  negroes  to  remember  Haiti,  "the  glory  of  the 
blacks  and  the  terror  of  tyrants." 

2  The  Southampton  Insurrection,     The  Neale  Company,  Washington. 
90 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  his  cabin  some  specially  prepared  articles  of  food  for  the 
supposed  invalid,  to  whom  the  family  were  attached.  As 
Mrs.  Turner  slept  that  night  with  her  infant  at  her  side, 
she  and  her  husband  were  slain  with  axes,  and  the  baby's 
brains  were  dashed  out  against  the  brickwork  of  the  fire- 
place. Two  other  children,  boys  of  about  twelve  and 
fourteen,  were  fatally  struck  on  the  head  as  they  slept. 
Having  wiped  out  this  family  at  dead  of  night,  Nat  and 
his  seven  negro  accomplices  armed  themselves  with  the 
guns  belonging  to  his  dead  master,  mounted  themselves 
on  horseback  and  rode  to  the  home  of  Mr.  Francis,  a 
bachelor  brother  of  the  woman  they  had  just  slain,  called 
him  under  the  pretext  that  there  was  a  message  for  him, 
and,  as  he  opened  the  door,  killed  him.  Mrs.  Reese  and 
her  son  William  were  the  next  victims  of  the  ax,  and  Mr. 
James  Barmer,  being  hit  on  the  head,  fell  limp  and  uncon- 
scious and  was  left  for  dead,  but  ultimately  survived — a  life- 
long cripple.  Three  miles  away  to  the  farm  of  Mrs.  Eliza- 
beth Turner  they  rode  quickly,  and  she,  Mrs.  Newsom,  and 
a  Mr.  Peebles  were  murdered.  The  company  of  negroes 
now  numbered  fifteen,  nine  of  whom  were  mounted.  Mr. 
Henry  Bryant,  his  wife  and  child,  and  his  wife's  mother 
died  next,  and  these  were  followed  in  short  order  by  Mrs. 
Whitehead  and  her  son  Richard,  three  daughters,  an  infant, 
and  the  grandmother.  One  of  the  daughters,  fleeing  to  es- 
cape, was  pursued  by  Nat  Turner,  who  beat  her  brains  out 
with  a  piece  of  fence-rail.  Harriet,  another  daughter,  suc- 
cessfully concealed  herself  beneath  the  mattress  in  a  box- 
bed,  the  only  survivor  of  this  family.  About  sunrise,  as 
they  were  proceeding  to  the  next  farm,  they  met  Mr.  Doyle 
in  the  road  and  killed  him.  Mrs.  Williams  and  her  little 
child  and  two  small  boys  were  then  butchered.     Another 

91 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Mr.  Doyle,  Mr.  John  Barrow,  George  Vaughan,  Mrs.  Levi 
Waller  and  her  child,  Martha  Waller,  Lucinda  Jones  and 
eight  other  school-children,  Mr.  Williams  and  wife,  Miles 
and  Henry  Johnson,  Mrs.  Warrell  and  child,  Mrs.  Vaughan, 
her  son  and  niece,  Mrs.  John  K.  Williams  and  child,  Mrs. 
Jacob  Williams  and  three  children,  and  Mrs.  Edwin  Drewry 
were  among  the  other  victims  of  this  horrible  slaughter. 
Drewry,  the  historian,  says  this  is  not  the  complete  list. 

Only  a  few  of  these  victims  were  shot.  The  negroes  were 
not  accustomed  to  the  use  of  firearms.  Axes  and  hatchets 
and  grubbing-hoes  were  preferred  as  weapons.  The  pikes 
John  Brown  had  made,  which  philanthropists  like  Stearns, 
Gerrit  Smith,  Sanborn,  and  their  associates  had  paid  for, 
were  well  suited  to  the  purpose  these  conspirators  had  in 
mind.  In  the  course  of  the  trials  which  ensued — for  none 
of  these  murderers  was  lynched — it  was  shown  that  the  razor 
was  used  to  despatch  only  one  person.  The  head  of  a  small 
boy,  who  ran  up  to  one  of  the  negroes  he  knew  and  asked 
him  to  take  him  up  behind  him  for  a  ride,  was  completely 
severed  from  the  body  by  a  single  stroke  of  an  ax.  Some 
few  armed  themselves  with  scythe-blades;  all  robbed  the 
dead;  and  finally  nearly  the  whole  of  this  murderous  gang 
became  drunk. 

They  had  gone  about  their  bloody  work  in  cunning  fash- 
ion. The  region  was  not  thickly  settled.  The  farm-houses 
were  so  far  apart  that  the  screams  of  the  frightened  and 
dying  could  not  be  heard  at  the  place  the  negroes  were  next 
to  visit;  then,  having  killed  every  one,  they  rode  hurriedly 
to  the  next  house.  In  this  way  the  bloody  work  went  on 
all  through  the  night,  and  it  was  only  after  broad  daylight 
that  some  one  escaped  and  began  to  spread  the  alarm;  so 
that  the  remaining  women  and  children  fled  to  the  woods 

92 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  hide  themselves,  and  the  men  and  lads  began  to  gather 
to  put  down  the  desperate  rabble.  It  so  happened  that  a 
neighbor  escaping  galloped  along  the  road  shouting  to  each 
household  as  he  passed  the  great  danger  of  remaining  in- 
doors. 

In  one  of  these  homes  was  then  living  Mrs.  John  Thomas, 
and  as  Nat  Turner's  band  was  seen  approaching  she  and 
her  fifteen-year-old  son  narrowly  escaped  the  common  doom 
by  running,  closely  pursued,  into  the  dense  forest,  where 
they  were  safely  concealed.  By  this  narrow  margin  was 
saved  the  life  of  the  one  human  being  who,  in  my  opinion, 
defeated  the  Southern  Confederacy  and  saved  the  cause  of 
the  Union  in  the  crisis  of  the  Civil  War  on  the  field  of 
Chickamauga,  where  the  independence  of  the  South  was 
won  and  thrown  away.  That  fifteen-year-old  boy  was 
George  H.  Thomas,  who  lived  to  be  the  "Rock  of  Chicka- 
mauga." 

By  noon  the  white  men  of  the  country  had  rallied  under 
arms,  and  soon  killed,  captured,  or  dispersed  the  negroes. 
The  ringleaders  and  some  fifteen  others  were  tried,  con- 
victed, and  hanged.  Thus  ended  the  sickening  slaughter. 
Haiti  and  San  Domingo  had  been  imitated. 

John  Brown  treasonably  and  murderously  led  an  armed 
invasion  of  this  same  state  to  liberate  and  arm  the  slaves 
and  subject  the  helpless  women  and  children  to  a  repetition 
of  these  scenes  of  horror  on  a  more  extended  scale.  The 
heartless  fanaticism  of  the  antislavery  agitation  is  indi- 
cated in  Sanborn's  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown.  Upon 
receipt  of  the  news  of  this  massacre  at  the  home  of  Brown 
in  Ohio,  Squire  Hudson  exclaimed:  "Thank  God!  I  am 
glad  of  it.     The  slaves  have  risen  down  in  Virginia!" 


X 

SOME    FACTS   ABOUT   JOHN    BROWN    NOT  GENERALLY    KNOWN 

Having  failed  at  every  one  of  a  half-dozen  different  voca- 
tions to  make  a  living  for  his  family  and  himself,  a  rolling 
stone  so  mossless  that  at  the  age  of  fifty-five  he  was  abso- 
lutely bankrupt  in  fortune,  and  no  less  so  in  honorable 
reputation,  John  Brown  turned  up  in  Kansas  in  October, 
1855,  in  the  role  of  a  professional  Free-soil  agitator  in  the 
employ  of  Mr.  Amos  A.  Lawrence,  Secretary  and  Treasurer 
of  the  New  England  Emigrant  Aid  Society,  of  which  Mr. 
Eli  Thayer,  of  Massachusetts,  was  the  president.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that  had  his  antecedents  been  known  to  these  hon- 
orable gentlemen,  they  would  not  have  given  him  employ- 
ment or  furnished  him  the  money  to  pay  his  traveling-ex- 
penses to  the  territory  (without  which  he  could  not  have 
made  the  trip),  for  as  soon  as  his  misconduct  there  revealed 
his  true  character — and  this  was  soon  in  evidence — they  re- 
pudiated him  and  publicly  denounced  him  as  unworthy  of 
confidence  and  respect  and  an  injury  to  the  free-state  cause. 

Disappointed  and  embittered  at  the  age  of  fifty-five,  "fit 
for  treason,"  looking  for  "spoils,"  and  ready  with  whatever 
"stratagem"  was  required  to  secure  them,  he,  with  scant 
regard  for  the  laws  of  God  and  man,  began  the  mad  career 
of  crime  which  in  the  course  of  four  years  of  robbery, 
bloodshed,  and  murder,  carried  into  untimely  graves  three 
of  his  sons  and  one  son-in-law  and  ended  on  December  2, 
1859,  in  his  legal  execution  at  Charlestown,  Virginia. 

94 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Bom  in  1800  of  poor  and  respectable  New  England 
parents,  who  moved  in  1805  to  Hudson,  Ohio,  where  there 
were  scant  opportunities  for  schooling,  John  Brown  learned 
to  read  and  write,  and  later  in  life  acquired  a  working  knowl- 
edge of  surveying.  Here  he  worked  at  tanning  and  survey- 
ing, then  moved  to  Pennsylvania,  thence  to  Portage  County, 
Ohio,  where  he  speculated  in  lands  which  "did  much  to 
injure  his  standing  and  business  credit,"  ^  tried  public  con- 
tracting, at  which  he  failed,  and  went  into  bankruptcy. 

'On  July  II,  1836,  he  was  sued  on  a  debt  of  six  thousand 
dollars,  and  his  surety,  a  Mr.  Oviatt,  was  forced  to  pay  the 
debt.  Brown  made  a  bond  to  Oviatt,  to  secure  him  on  a 
piece  of  land  he  had  traded  for,  but  without  recording  the 
deed.  When  the  deed  was  finally  recorded,  without  notice 
to  Oviatt,  to  whom  he  was  under  every  obligation  of  honor, 
Brown  mortgaged  the  land  to  two  other  men."  Mr.  Vil- 
lard  says:  "This  transaction  bears  an  unpleasant  aspect." 
In  1837  he  moved  back  to  Hudson,  Ohio,  and  went  into  the 
business  of  breeding  race-horses,  and  changed  in  1838  to 
the  cattle  and  sheep  raising  business.  In  one  of  a  number 
of  suits  brought  against  him  about  this  time,  which  was  de- 
cided against  him,  he  resisted  the  process  of  the  law.  With 
his  three  sons,  John,  Jason,  and  Owen,  he  barricaded  him- 
self in  a  house  on  the  land  in  question  and  held  unlawful 
possession  until  the  sheriff  with  a  posse  compelled  them  to 
vacate  and  placed  them  in  the  jail  at  Akron,  Ohio. 

"On  June  15,  1839,  John  Brown  received  from  the  New 
England  Woolen  Company  at  Rockville,  Connecticut,  the 
sum  of  twenty-eight  hundred  dollars,  through  its  agent, 
George  Kellogg,  for  the  purchase  of  wool.     This  money  he 

^  John  Brown,  Fifty  Years  After.     By  Oswald  Garrison  Villard.     The  most 
reliable  history  of  this  subject  yet  printed. 

95 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

purloined  for  his  own  benefit,  and  was  never  able  to  redeem. 
Fortunately  for  him,  and  very  probably  convinced  that  their 
chance  of  securing  the  return  of  all  or  a  part  of  this  money 
was  better  with  the  defaulter  at  large  than  in  the  peniten- 
tiary, the  company  exercised  leniency  toward  him,  in  re- 
turn for  which  he  promised,  in  1842,  after  passing  through 
bankruptcy,  to  pay  the  money  from  time  to  time  with 
interest,  as  Divine  Providence  might  enable  him  to  do."^ 
Although  he  lived  twenty  years  after  this  transaction  and 
robbed  much,  none  of  the  stolen  money  was  ever  repaid. 

Villard  states:  "On  the  records  of  the  Portage  County 
Court  of  Common  Pleas  at  Ravenna,  Ohio,  are  no  less  than 
twenty-one  lawsuits  in  which  John  Brown  figured  as  de- 
fendant. Thirteen  were  actions  brought  to  recover  money 
loaned  to  Brown,  singly  or  in  company  with  others.  The 
remaining  suits  were  mostly  for  claims  for  wages  or  pay- 
ments due  or  for  nonfulfilment  of  contracts.  Judgment 
against  Brown  was  once  entered  by  his  consent  for  a  nominal 
sum.  In  ten  other  cases  he  was  successfully  sued,  and  judg- 
ments were  obtained  against  him.  A  serious  litigation  was 
an  action  brought  by  the  Bank  of  Worcester  to  recover  on  a 
bill  of  exchange  drawn  by  Brown  and  others  on  the  Leather 
Manufacturers  Bank  of  New  York,  and  repudiated  by  that 
institution  on  the  ground  that  Brown  and  his  associates 
had  no  money  in  the  bank.  When  judgment  against  Brown 
and  his  associates  was  rendered  it  was  for  nine  hundred 
and  seventeen  dollars  and  sixty -five  cents."  ^  Mr.  San- 
born says^  that  when  he  questioned  Mr.  Simon  Perkins,  of 
Akron,  about  Brown's  wool-growing  and  wool-dealing,  he 
replied,  "The  less  you  say  about  them  the  better."  In 
1S41  Brown  hired  out  as  a  sheep-tender  at  Richfield,  Ohio; 

*  Villard.  ^  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Brown,  p.  57. 

96 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

went  back  to  tanning  in  1842 ;  and  gave  it  up  once  more  in 
1844.  In  1846  he  was  settled  in  Springfield,  Massachusetts, 
as  a  wool-dealer,  in  association  with  the  Mr.  Perkins  men- 
tioned above,  and  in  1849  made  a  trip  to  England  in  con- 
nection with  this  business,  failed,  and  caused  his  partner  a 
loss  of  forty  thousand  dollars.  Suit  was  brought  against 
Perkins  &  Brown  for  sixty  thousand  dollars  for  breach  of 
contract.  The  case  was  tried  in  1853.  According  to  Vil- 
lard,  it  was  settled  out  of  court,  "counsel  deeming  it  wiser 
to  compromise  than  to  face  a  jury."  From  this  time  to  his 
death,  in  1859,  he  had  no  business  and  no  visible  means  of 
support  except  "gifts  made  to  maintain  him  as  a  guerrilla 
leader  in  Kansas  or  as  a  prospective  invader  of  Virginia." 

Five  of  Brown's  sons,  John,  Jason,  Owen,  Frederick,  and 
Salmon,  chips  of  the  old  block,  able  and  willing  to  com- 
mit murder  and  rob  defenseless  settlers  in  a  new  country, 
squatted  on  lands  in  Kansas  in  the  spring  of  1855,  ^^^  here 
their  father  joined  them  in  October,  1855.^  The  excitement 
over  the  struggle  between  the  proslavery  and  the  free-state 
partisans  in  the  territory  was  already  great.  In  all  prob- 
ability the  most  important  factor  in  finally  winning  Kansas 
as  a  free  state  was  the  New  England  Emigrant  Aid  Com- 
pany, chartered  in  February,  1855.  The  head  and  prime 
mover  in  this  far-sighted  measure  was  Mr.  Eli  Thayer,  who 
represented  Worcester  in  the  Massachusetts  legislature 
and  later  was  a  member  of  Congress.  Of  this  company 
Mr.  Amos  A.  Lawrence,  for  whom  I  believe  the  city  in 

^  As  an  index  of  the  character  for  thrift  and  industry  of  these  sons  of  Brown 
it  may  be  stated  that  John,  Jr.,  was  thirty-four  years  old;  Jason,  thirty-two; 
Owen,  thirty-one;  Frederick,  twenty-five;  and  Salmon  nineteen;  and  all 
they  had  to  show  for  their  lives  to  this  time  were  eleven  cattle  and  three 
horses.  They  were  worthy  sons  of  their  sire,  and  went  to  Kansas  ripe  for  the 
era  of  plunder  and  murder  in  which  they  moved  with  much  success. 

97 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Kansas  is  named,  was  the  treasurer,  and  it  was  he  who 
paid  Brown  to  go  to  Kansas  to  take  part  in  any  activities 
which  might  requiie  the  use  of  Sharp's  rifles,  or  "Beecher 
Bibles,"  as  the  markings  on  the  boxes  specified.  A  man  of 
blameless  life,  whose  reputation  for  cautious  speech  and 
perfect  truthfulness  is  unquestioned,  Mr.  Lawrence  said 
before  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  in  May,  1884: 
"When  Eli  Thayer  obtained  the  charter  for  the  company, 
Dr.  Robinson  was  chosen  territorial  agent.  It  was  to 
support  the  party  of  law  and  order  and  make  Kansas  a 
free  state  by  bona-fide  settlement.  Charles  Robinson  had 
the  requisite  qualities  to  direct  this  movement.  He  was 
cool,  judicious,  entirely  devoid  of  fear,  and  in  every  respect 
worthy  of  the  confidence  reposed  in  him  by  the  society  and 
the  settlers.  He  was  imprisoned,  his  house  burned,  his  life 
was  threatened,  yet  he  never  bore  arms  or  omitted  to  do 
what  he  thought  to  be  his  duty.  He  sternly  held  the  peo- 
ple to  their  loyalty  to  the  government  against  the  arguments 
and  the  example  of  the  'higher-law'  men,  who  were  always 
armed,  and  who  were  bent   on  bringing   on  a  border   war. 

"But  what  shall  we  say  of  John  Brown?  His  course  was 
the  opposite  of  Robinson's.  He  was  always  armed,  he  was 
always  disloyal  to  the  United  States  government,  and  to 
all  government  except  what  he  called  the  'higher-law.' 
He  was  always  ready  to  shed  blood,  and  he  always  did  shed 
it  without  remorse. 

"It  fell  to  me  to  give  John  Brown  his  first  letter  to  Kansas, 
introducing  him  to  Governor  Robinson  and  authorizing 
him  to  employ  Brown  and  to  draw  on  me  for  his  compensa- 
tion, if  he  could  make  him  useful  in  the  work  of  the  Emigrant 
Aid  Company.  But  very  soon  Governor  Robinson  wrote 
that  he  would  not  employ  him,  as  he  was  unreliable  and 

98 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

would  as  soon  shoot  a  United  States  officer  as  a  border  ruf- 
fian. When  he  was  a  prisoner  at  Harper's  Ferry  I  wrote 
to  Governor  Wise,  advising  his  release  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  a  monomaniac  and  that  his  execution  would  make 
him  a  martyr.  John  Brown  had  no  enemies  in  New  Eng- 
land, but  many  friends  and  admirers.  He  was  constantly 
receiving  money  from  them.  They  little  knew  what  use 
he  was  making  of  it,  for  he  deceived  everybody.  If  he  had 
succeeded  in  his  design  at  Harper's  Ferry  of  exciting  a  ser- 
vile insurrection  the  country  would  have  stood  aghast  with 
horror." 

Eli  Thayer  says  in  the  Kansas  Crusade  (page  189) :  "John 
Brown  induced  Mr.  Amos  A.  Lawrence  to  furnish  him 
money  to  pay  his  expenses  to  Kansas.  It  was  easy  for  any 
one  who  professed  a  desire  to  aid  in  the  work  of  making 
Kansas  a  free  state  to  secure  his  entire  confidence.  But 
his  confidence  was  sometimes  abused,  notably  in  the  case 
of  John  Brown.  Mr.  Lawrence  furnished  him  the  money 
which  enabled  him  to  pay  his  fare  to  Kansas,  late  in  1855. 
Subsequently  he  contributed  for  his  use  in  the  territory, 
and  for  traveling  outside  of  it,  many  important  sums.  He 
also  furnished  about  one  thousand  dollars  to  pay  a  mort- 
gage on  Brown's  home  at  North  Elba,  New  York.  For  one 
or  two  years  he  regarded  Brown  as  an  honest  man  and  an 
aid  to  the  free-state  cause.  At  length,  however,  he  learned 
how  his  confidence  had  been  abused,  and  from  that  time 
no  one  ever  denounced  the  Pottawatomie  assassin  in  more 
vigorous  English." 

Mr.  Thayer  says  further:  "The  Republican  convention 
which  nominated  Lincoln  for  the  presidency  in  i860  named 
John  Brown  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  criminals. 

"When  Brown  made  his  invasion  of  Virginia,  and  during 

99 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

his  trial,  conviction,  and  execution,  I  was  a  member  of  Con- 
gress, and  had  the  means  of  knowing  the  opinions  of  members. 
There  was  not  one  of  that  body  who  considered  his  punish- 
ment as  unjust.  A  few,  however,  were  of  the  opinion  that 
it  would  have  been  better  to  have  put  him  in  a  mad-house 
for  life.  This  would  have  prevented  the  grotesque  efforts 
of  a  few  of  his  sympathizers  and  supporters  to  parade  him 
before  the  country  as  a  martyr. 

"John  Brown  arrived  in  Kansas  nearly  two  years  after 
the  conflict  there  against  slavery  began.  He  was  a  great 
injury  to  the  free-state  cause  and  to  the  free-state  settlers. 
He  said,  'I  have  not  come  to  make  Kansas  free,  but  to  get 
a  shot  at  the  South.'  He  wished  to  begin  a  civil  war.  He 
never  had  any  property  in  Kansas  which  might  be  subject 
to  retaliation  and  reprisal  for  his  crimes.  Skulking  about 
under  various  disguises  and  pretenses,  he  left  the  free-state 
settlers  to  suffer  further  numerous  outrages.  At  length 
they  compelled  him  to  leave  the  territory. 

"To  the  above  should  be  added  the  robbing  of  slaves  in 
Kansas,  the  stealing  of  horses,  and  about  four  thousand  dol- 
lars' worth  of  oxen,  mules,  wagons,  harness,  and  such  valu- 
ables and  property  as  he  could  find.  He  was  a  merciless 
and  most  unscrupulous  jayhawker.  .  .  .  After  his  midnight 
murders  the  people  about  Ossawatomie  assembled  to  ex- 
press their  indignation.  Here  on  most  friendly  terms  were 
the  free-state  men  and  the  slave-state  men.  In  the  over- 
shadowing gloom  of  such  a  terrible  crime  all  partisan  issues 
were  forgotten.  John  Brown,  with  characteristic  lying,  de- 
nied that  he  was  present  at  this  massacre  or  that  he  had 
had  anything  to  do  with  it.  No  fact  in  history  is  now 
better  established  than  that  he  was  the  father  of  the 
crime  and  leader  of  the  assassins." 

lOO 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Mr.  Thayer  says  further:  "He  came  to  me  in  Worcester 
to  solicit  a  contribution  of  arms  for  the  defense  of  some 
Kansas  settlements  which  he  said  he  knew  were  to  be  at- 
tacked. Not  doubting  his  word,  I  gave  him  all  the  arms  I 
had,  in  value  about  five  hundred  dollars.  Under  the  same 
false  pretense  he  received  another  contribution  from  Ethan 
Allan  &  Co.,  manufacturers  in  this  city.  These  arms 
were  never  taken  to  Kansas,  but  were  captured  at  Har- 
per's Ferry.  Under  the  same  false  pretense  of  assisting 
the  settlers,  he  procured  funds  from  several  New  York 
merchants." 

Mr.  Thayer  says  that  after  the  raid  in  Missouri,  in  De- 
cember, 1858,  when  William  Cruse  was  murdered,  Brown 
stole  about  four  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  property  and 
valuables,  along  with  eleven  slaves;  and  then,  in  order  to 
make  them  useful  for  the  purpose  of  securing  funds,  he 
took  from  December  to  April  to  get  his  liberated  slaves  to 
Canada.     He  sent  agents  in  all  directions  to  solicit  aid. 

In  an  editorial  comment  on  Mr.  Thayer's  statement,  the 
New  York  Sun  of  November  27,  1887,  says:  "Mr.  Thayer 
speaks  from  intimate  personal  knowledge;  describes  John 
Brown  as  a  felon  or  a  fiend,  a  robber,  murderer,  and 
traitor,  and  gives  instances  of  his  conduct  to  justify 
the  truth  of  his  description.  Abraham  Lincoln  in  his 
famous  speech  at  Cooper  Institute  agrees  with  Mr.  Thayer 
in  ranging  John  Brown  with  the  monomaniacs  who  resort 
to  assassination  for  the  cure  of  what  seem  to  them  social 
or  political  evils.  Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon  and 
John  Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's  Ferry  were  in  their 
philosophy  the  same.  These  words  expressed  a  sentiment 
so  general  in  the  North  that  the  first  Republican  leader  felt 
it  necessary  to  speak  so  emphatically.     At  that  time  the 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

abolitionists,  always  a  small  and  detested  body  of  fanatics, 
had  reached  the  firm  conclusion  that  their  only  hope  lay 
in  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  They  were  out  and  out  dis- 
unionists,  trampling  on  the  Constitution  at  their  meetings 
as  'a  league  with  death  and  a  covenant  with  hell,'  and  de- 
claring that  'there  was  no  issue  of  any  importance  except 
the  dissolution  of  the  Union.'  They  were  therefore  quick 
to  make  John  Brown  a  martyr  to  their  cause.  These  are 
doubtless  the  facts  of  history,  and  Mr.  Thayer  does  the 
public  a  service  in  calling  attention  to  them  at  a  time  when 
anarchists  are  attempting  to  justify  their  savagery  by 
pointing  to  John  Brown  as  a  great  moral  hero  whose  mem- 
ory is  revered  by  his  countrymen  and  honored  by  the  whole 
world." 

I  have  quoted  these  men  of  high  character  and  unques- 
tioned veracity  because  they  were  men  of  strong  conviction, 
who  believed  that  Kansas  was  a  battle-ground  where  under 
the  law  a  stand-up  fight  might  be  made  in  the  open,  and 
with  guns  if  need  be,  between  the  opposing  forces  of  sla- 
very and  antislavery.  They  were  wise  enough  to  see  that 
carrying  hardy  farmers  and  planting  them  as  tillers  of  the 
free  soil  was  the  one  legitimate  and  logical  way  of  doing 
what  Thomas  Jefferson  of  Virginia  tried  to  do — namely, 
prevent  the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  territories.  These 
men  were  in  personal  contact  with  John  Brown,  and  they 
knew  him.  Eli  Thayer  was  of  such  prominence  in  his  day 
that,  according  to  the  New  York  Independent  of  December 
i6,  1875,  "Charles  Sumner  said  in  January,  1857:  'The  state 
of  Kansas  should  be  named  "Thayer."'  " 

In  19 10,  at  a  meeting  of  the  veterans  of  '56  in  Kansas, 
Colonel  O.  E.  Learnard,  of  Lawrence,  made  an  address  from 
which  what  follows  is  taken.     While  I  felt  sure,  from  the 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

tone  of  the  protest,  that  its  author  could  say  nothing  that 
was  of  doubtful  truthfulness,  I  wrote  to  a  brother  physician 
in  Lawrence,  Dr.  George  W.  Jones,  making  proper  inquiry. 
He  assured  me  that  "Mr.  Warren,  a  former  State  Senator; 
Mr.  Brooks,  once  member  of  the  legislature;  Mr.  Kennedy 
and  Captain  Huddleston  and  Colonel  Learnard  were  in 
every  respect  among  the  foremost  citizens  of  the  state.  Of 
Colonel  O.  E.  Learnard,  the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all,  one 
cannot  say  too  much  in  praise  of  his  noted  integrity.  A 
man  who  has  had  about  all  the  honors  the  community  could 
give  him  is  now  in  retirement,  universally  respected.  Colonel 
Learnard  was  an  abolitionist  Republican." 

In  the  address  entitled  "John  Brown's  Career  in  Kansas," 
Colonel  Learnard  said: 

"At  the  meeting  of  this  association  two  years  ago  I  was 
to  have  made  some  remarks  in  relation  to  John  Brown  and 
his  career  in  Kansas,  but  was  unable  to  do  so  on  account  of 
ill  health.  Since  then  I  have  given  the  matter  very  little 
thought  until  the  recent  much  -  heralded  event  at  Ossa- 
watomie,^  by  and  through  which  w^as  revealed  a  stated 
purpose  to  pervert  the  facts  in  the  interest  of  a  mawkish 
sentimentality  that  deliberately  ignores  and  derides  well- 
authenticated  history. 

"The  late  Joel  K.  Goodw^in,  in  a  letter  to  Governor  Rob- 
inson, said:  'The  sickening  adulation  and  offensive  slobbers 
over  some  of  the  imaginary  saviors  of  Kansas  to  freedom 
which  have  passed  the  lips  of  ministers  and  laymen,  lec- 
turers and  politicians,  editors  and  essayists  during  the  past 
thirty  years  has  added  little  to  the  truthfulness  of  history 
or  the  healthy  education  of  the  young  men  and  young 
women  of  the  state.'     Under  the  circumstances  it  seems 

^  In  reference  to  the  address  of  ex-President  Roosevelt. 
103 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

pertinent  that  at  least  some  of  the  salient  facts  of  the  mat- 
ter should  be  stated,  and  I  do  this  from  no  motive  or  wish 
other  than  a  vindication  of  the  truth  of  history.  It  is  con- 
ceded at  the  outset  that  most  of  the  early  settlers,  those 
who  were  cognizant  of  the  facts,  most  of  whom  were  par- 
ticipants in  these  events,  did  not,  and  do  not,  share  the 
sentiments  which  have  recently  been  expressed  as  to  the 
character  and  achievements  of  John  Brown.  I  have  al- 
ways thought  that  some  of  us  who  survive  think  they  know 
better.  Of  those  who  have  passed  away  I  readily  recall 
General  Thomas  Ewing,  Marcus  J.  Parrott,  Colonel  W.  Y. 
Roberts,  Colonel  Campbell,  Colonel  C.  K.  Holliday,  General 
R.  B.  Mitchell,  Guilford  Dudley,  George  A.  Crawford, 
Senator  Alex.  McDonald,  Colonel  Blood,  C.  W.  Babcock, 
Lyman  Allen,  B.  W.  Woodward,  Judge  Emery,  General 
G.  Deitsler,  and  Joel  K.  Goodwin — indeed,  the  list  might 
be  extended  almost  indefinitely. 

"Those  present  here  to-day,  Mr.  Morrow,  Paul  R.  Brooks, 
Scott  Kennedy,  your  president.  Captain  Huddleston,  and 
others  who  were  active  participants  in  nearly  all  the  stirring 
events  of  '56,  of  my  personal  knowledge — these  gentlemen 
can  speak  for  themselves.  The  claims  made  for  John 
Brown  are  that  he  was  the  savior  of  Kansas  to  freedom, 
that  he  inspired  the  organized  armed  resistance  to  border- 
ruffian  aggression,  and  was  its  master  spirit  and  guide. 
Each  and  all  of  these  claims  on  his  behalf  I  unhesitatingly 
and  absolutely  repudiate  and  deny. 

"The  first  organized  and  armed  resistance  was  in  what  is 
designated  as  the  'Wakarusa  War.'  Governor  Robinson 
was  chief  in  command,  and  General  Lane  second.  John 
Brown  had  but  recently  arrived,  and  on  the  strength  of  the 
representation  that  he  had  fought  in  the  battle  of  Platts- 

104 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

burg  in  the  War  of  1812 — a  representation,  by  the  way, 
that  was  absolutely  false — he  was  given  the  nominal  com- 
mand of  a  small  squad  of  men. 

"During  that  brief  and  bloodless  campaign  John  Brown 
spent  most  of  his  time  in  faultfinding  and  growling  about 
the  camp,  particularly  of  the  Topeka  company;  so  that 
they  ordered  him  to  get  out  and  stay  out.  This  statement 
is  made  on  the  authority  of  the  late  Guilford  Dudley,  for 
a  great  many  years  a  prominent  and  well-known  resident 
of  Topeka,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Topeka  company. 
John  Speer,  in  his  Life  oj  General  Lane,  referring  to  the 
treaty  that  closed  the  'Wakarusa  War,'  says:  'The  conflict 
was  remarkable  for  the  harmony  among  the  free-state 
leaders.  I  heard  of  no  disagreement  except  Brown,  who 
was  bitter  against  any  settlement.' 

"And  this  same  habit  of  growling  and  faultfinding  char- 
acterized all  his  later  relation  to  the  free-state  movement 
and  its  leaders.  During  the  spring  and  summer  of  1856 
John  Brown  was  only  occasionally  about  Lawrence,  and  only 
for  brief  periods,  and  at  no  time  did  he  have  a  command 
here.  He  was  here  on  the  14th  of  September.  I  saw  him 
a  little  after  noon  as  twenty-five  of  us  mounted  men  started 
to  locate  the  Missourians,  about  whom  all  sorts  of  rumors 
were  afloat.  I  saw  no  more  of  him  that  day,  and  I  know  of 
no  one  who  did.  The  only  free-state  forces  employed  that 
day  other  than  our  twenty-five  horsemen,  who  occupied 
the  outpost  southeast  of  town  until  the  troops  came,  was 
a  small  company  under  the  command  of  Captain  Joseph 
Cracklin,  stationed  out  in  Earl's  addition,  and  some  mem- 
bers of  the  Cabot  guards,  and  other  citizens  in  the  stone 
fort  on  the  hill.  I  saw  Brown  at  Rock  Creek  camp  and  one 
or  two  other  times  during  the  summer.  When  Lane  pro- 
8  105 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

posed  to  me  to  make  the  demonstration  on  Leavenworth 
that  summer  he  coupled  with  it  the  suggestion  that  Brown 
accompany  us.  I  rephed  that  I  was  wilHng  to  make  the 
trip,  but  that  Brown  could  not  go  with  us;  and,  of  course, 
he  did  not. 

"Most  of  his  operations  were  in  the  border  counties  of 
Kansas  and  Missouri — forays,  night  alarms,  and  frighten- 
ing peaceful  citizens.  Generally  his  raids  were  fruitful  of 
plunder.  A  proslavery  man,  or  even  a  free-state  man  who 
did  not  accord  with  his  views  and  methods,  had  no  rights  of 
person  or  property  that  Brown  respected.  This  condition 
continued  long  after  the  free-state  issue  was  settled  and  the 
territorial  legislature  was  in  the  hands  of  the  free-state 
men,  as  well  as  the  administration  of  local  affairs  in  the  bor- 
der counties.  Indeed,  a  condition  of  disquiet  and  appre- 
hension prevailed  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  in  the  border 
counties  until  Brown  left  Kansas  for  good. 

"His  achievements  for  the  most  part  were  of  the  order 
of  that  noted  by  Professor  Spring,  as  follows:  'At  St.  Ber- 
nard, five  miles  from  camp,  a  successful  proslavery  trader 
had  a  miscellaneous  store,  filled  with  dry-goods,  clothing, 
drugs,  groceries,  firearms,  hardware,  boots  and  shoes.  A 
necessitous  company  of  guerrillas  could  scarcely  be  expected 
to  neglect  so  favorable  an  opportunity  to  supply  their  wants 
at  the  expense  of  a  Southerner.  Certainly  the  company 
camped  on  Middle  Creek  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  About 
nightfall,  June  3d,  such  is  the  drift  of  the  testimony  before 
the  Strickler  Commission,  "(part  of  a  company  commanded 
by  one  John  Brown,  armed  with  Sharp's  rifles,  pistols, 
bowie-knives,  and  other  deadly  weapons,  came  upon  the 
premises  and  attacked  and  rushed  into  the  said  storel" — a 
sudden  condition  of  affairs  so  warlike  that  the  employees 

106 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

were  deterred,  threatened,  and  overpowered  by  the  des- 
peradoes, who  demanded  a  surrender  of  the  goods  and 
chattels,  threatening  immediate  death  and  destruction 
should  the  sHghtest  opposition  be  offered.  Finding  the 
prize  richer  than  they  had  anticipated  and  their  appliances 
for  transportation  inadequate,  the  gang  returned  in  the 
morning  and  resumed  operations.  They  evidently  left 
nothing  to  be  desired  in  point  of  thoroughness." 

Redpath,  in  his  Life  of  John  Brown,  says :  "Brown  then  lay 
down  by  otir  side  and  told  us  of  the  wars  and  trials  he  had 
passed  through;  that  he  had  settled  in  Kansas  with  a  large 
family,  having  with  him  six  full-grown  sons;  that  he  had 
taken  a  claim  in  Lykens  County,  Kansas,  and  was  attending 
peacefully  to  the  duties  of  husbandry  when  the  hordes  of 
wild  men  came  over  from  Missouri  and  took  possession  of 
all  the  ballot-boxes,  destroyed  his  corn,  stole  his  horses,  and 
shot  down  his  cattle,  sheep,  and  hogs,  and  repeatedly  threat- 
ened to  shoot,  hang,  or  burn  him."  Commenting  upon  this, 
Dr.  George  W.  Brown,  who  has  written  some  of  the  most 
accurate  of  Kansas  history,  and  who  lived  a  great  part  of 
it,  says:  "Need  we  write,  even  at  this  distance  in  time  from 
those  occurrences  in  Kansas  history,  that  probably  there 
was  not  one  word  of  truth  in  all  that  statement  ?  Old  John 
Brown  had  participated  in  no  wars;  he  never  settled  in 
Kansas  with  his  family,  hence  did  not  have  any  six  sons  with 
him  in  that  family;  he  never  entered  any  claim  in  Lykens 
County,  Kansas,  nor  anywhere  else;  he  did  not  attend  to 
the  duties  of  husbandry;  he  was  not  in  the  territory  until 
six  months  after  the  Missouri  usurpation  of  the  ballot-boxes. 
The  only  horses  he  ever  owned,  save  the  one  he  drove 
into  the  territory,  were  stolen,  and  the  same  is  true  of 

107 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

his    blooded    stock,   his    sheep,   and   his   hogs,   if   he   had 
any." 

The  late  General  J.  K.  Hudson,  for  many  years  editor 
of  the  Topeka  Capital,  and  one  of  the  foremost  writers  of 
the  West,  said  in  the  course  of  an  editorial  in  the  Topeka 
Capital:  "There  is  not  written  in  the  annals  of  Kansas 
a  single  incident  that  reflects  credit  upon  the  inteUigence 
of  John  Brown,  his  industry,  his  integrity,  or  reveals  a  single 
admirable  quality  of  heart  or  mind.  Kansas  has  been  wont 
to  veneer  the  character  of  John  Brown  with  excessive 
praise.  It  has  habitually  spread  upon  his  memory  the 
spittle  of  effulgent  adulation.  Isn't  it  about  time  to  take 
the  measure  of  his  true  value  as  a  citizen?  Isn't  it  about 
time  to  admit  the  truth,  which  is  that  he  was  a  loafer,  a 
brawler,  a  disturber  who  did  nothing  to  his  own  credit 
and  who  scattered  misery  with  the  hand  of  a  sower?" 

As  to  the  alleged  "battle  of  Ossawatomie,"  August  30, 
1856,  John  Brown,  in  a  letter  to  his  wife  recently  pubHshed, 
stated  that  he  had  had  a  hard  fight  with  the  Missourians, 
whom  he  had  defeated,  their  killed  being  estimated  at  from 
seventy  to  eighty  men.  Dr.  Updegraft,  in  his  speech  at 
the  dedication  of  the  John  Brown  monument,  fixed  the 
number  of  killed  at  from  thirty  to  forty  and  the  wounded 
from  seventy-five  to  one  hundred.  The  well-authenticated 
facts  are  that  not  one  of  the  Missourians  was  killed,  and 
only  three  were  wounded  by  gun-shots. 

Judge  Robinson,  for  years  a  prominent  citizen  of  Paola, 
who  wrote  the  history  of  Miami  County,  verifies  this  state- 
ment, and  adds: 

"When  I  came  to  the  battle  of  Ossawatomie,  wishing  to 
be  historically  correct,  I  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  investigat- 
ing the  subject;  and,  while  my  sympathies  are  and  always 

108 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

have  been  with  the  defenders  of  Ossawatomie,  and  I  should 
have  been  glad  to  have  had  the  Missourians  routed  or  cap- 
tured, sentiment  cannot  be  used  in  making  history — facts 
are  required." 

Colonel  William  Higgins,  formerly  secretary  of  state  for 
Kansas,  and  at  present  postmaster  and  post  commander 
of  the  G.  A.  R.  at  Bartlesville,  Oklahoma,  then  a  boy  who 
was  present  on  the  occasion  as  a  teamster  in  the  Read,  or 
proslavery,  command,  says:  "Two  of  the  gunners  were 
wounded,  and  one  man  with  a  bad  shot  in  his  left  arm.  The 
two  wounded  gunners  were  conveyed  back  to  Missouri  in 
a  wagon,  while  the  other  wounded  man  was  able  to  ride  his 
horse.  This  covers  the  total  loss  and  damage  sustained 
by  the  border  ruffians,  while  but  two  of  the  free -state 
men  were  killed,  and  they  on  the  picket -line  in  the 
morning. ' ' 

These  were  Fred  Brown  and  George  Partridge,  the  only 
authenticated  victims  of  the  engagement.  Mr.  Higgins 
adds:  "While  the  fires  were  still  burning  the  roll  was  called, 
and  every  man  that  marched  to  Ossawatomie  was  accounted 
for;   not  one  killed  or  missing." 

Captain  J.  M.  Anthony,  brother  of  Colonel  D.  R.  An- 
thony, a  resident  of  Ossawatomie  at  the  time,  in  a  letter  to 
the  Leavenworth  Times  recounting  the  incidents  of  the 
occasion,  said:  "A  few  shots  were  exchanged.  When 
pressed  by  the  enemy  there  was  no  orderly  retreat,  but  a 
general  skedaddle,  every  man  for  himself — John  Brown 
with  the  rest."  He  adds:  "I  went  down  to  the  barnyard 
to  milk  the  cow,  having  had  nothing  to  eat  since  breakfast, 
and  while  milking  saw  Brown  advancing  up  the  ravine. 
When  about  twenty-five  feet  from  me  he  stopped  and  called 
out:    'Hello!     Is  that  you?'     I  replied  that  it  assuredly 

109 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

was.  He  then  asked  me  about  the  day's  engagement, 
seemingly  entirely  ignorant  of  the  result,  and,  like  Dr. 
Updegraft  and  everybody  else,  thought  the  whole  com- 
munity had  been  killed." 

As  an  example  of  the  reliability  of  any  statement  emanat- 
ing from  John  Brown  or  any  member  of  his  family  the  fol- 
lowing extract  is  taken  from  a  letter  of  Brown's  printed  in 
Sanborn's  book  and  dated  Lawrence,  Kansas  Territory, 
September  7,  1856: 

"On  the  morning  of  the  30th  of  August  an  attack  was 
made  by  the  ruffians  on  Ossawatomie,  numbering  some  four 
hundred.  At  this  time  I  was  about  three  miles  off,  where 
I  had  some  fourteen  or  fifteen  men.  These  I  collected  with 
some  twelve  or  fifteen  men,  and  in  about  three-quarters  of 
an  hour  I  attacked  them  from  a  wood  with  thick  under- 
growth. With  this  force  we  threw  them  into  confusion  for 
about  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  during  which  time  we 
killed  or  wounded  from  seventy  to  eighty  of  the  enemy, 
as  they  say.  Four  or  five  free-state  men  were  butchered 
during  the  day  in  all.  I  was  struck  by  a  partly  spent 
grape,  canister,  or  rifle  shot  which  bruised  me  some  but  did 
not  injure  me  seriously.  'Hitherto  the  Lord  has  helped 
me,'  notwithstanding  my  afflictions." 

The  simple  facts  above  given  are  from  sources  no  sane 
person  will  question,  and  this  distortion  of  truth  by  John 
Brown,  which  his  biographers  use  as  a  text  for  a  sermon  on 
one  of  his  greatest  and  most  heroic  battles  for  free  Kansas, 
demonstrates  the  force  of  the  maxim  that  there  is  but  "a  step 
from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous,"  which  is  still  further 
emphasized  when  we  reflect  that  the  people  of  Kansas  have 
been  deceived  into  erecting  a  monument  on  this  battle- 
field, on  one  side  of  which  is  blazoned  the  "Heroism  of 

no 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Captain  John  Brown,  who  commanded  at  the  Battle  of 
Ossawatomie,  August  30,  1856  ;  who  died  and  conquered 
American     Slavery    at     Charlestown,    Va.,    December    2, 

1859." 

It  may  be  illuminating  to  quote  from  a  letter  from  Mr, 
Richard  Mendenhall,  a  Quaker  (Sanborn,  page  326):  "I 
next  met  John  Brown  again  on  the  evening  before  the  battle 
of  Ossawatomie.  He  with  a  number  of  others  was  driving 
a  herd  of  cattle  which  they  had  taken  from  proslavery  men. 
He  rode  out  of  the  company  to  speak  to  me  when  I  play- 
fully asked  him  where  he  got  those  cattle.  He  replied  with 
a  characteristic  shake  of  the  head  that  'they  were  good 
free-state  cattle  now.'" 

Governor  Charles  Robinson,  in  his  Kansas  Conflict,  says 
(page  330) :  "The  only  battles  in  which  Brown  was  engaged 
were  at  Black  Jack  and  Ossawatomie.  At  the  first  Captain 
Shore  had  nineteen  men  and  Brown  nine.  Shore  with  his 
men  attacked  Pate  from  the  open  prairie  and  drove  him 
into  the  ravine,  while  Brown  took  to  the  ravine  at  once  and 
was  not  in  sight  of  the  foe  at  all.  Shore  also  went  into  the 
ravine,  and  shots  were  exchanged  for  several  hours,  till 
Captain  J.  B.  Abbott  appeared  in  sight  of  the  enemy  with 
his  company,  when  Pate  surrendered.  This  is  substantially 
the  part  played  in  this  battle  by  Brown." 

The  truth  is  that  Brown's  most  famous  engagement,  and 
one  that  will  be  remembered  when  Black  Jack  and  Ossawa- 
tomie are  forgotten,  took  place  on  the  night  of  May  24, 
1856.  On  this  night,  accompanied  by  his  four  sons  Owen, 
Frederick,  Salmon,  and  Oliver,  his  son-in-law  Henry  Thomp- 
son, a  Jew  named  Wiener,  and  Townsley,  a  settler,  about 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning  he  took  from  their  beds  and  homes 
three  men  and  two  lads,  one  under  age,  and  made  his  sons 

III 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  the  others  cut  these  to  death  in  a  manner  almost  too 
horrible  to  be  believed.  That  their  leader  and  his  gang  were 
careful  of  their  own  lives  is  attested  by  the  statement  of 
Salmon  Brown,  one  of  the  murderers,  who  wrote  later: 
' '  Soon  after  crossing  the  creek  some  one  of  the  party  knocked 
at  the  door  of  a  cabin.  There  was  no  reply,  but  from  within 
came  the  sound  of  a  gun  rammed  through  the  chinks  of  the 
cabin  walls.  At  that  we  all  scattered.  We  did  not  disturb 
that  man"  (Villard).  They  next  proceeded  to  the  cabin  of 
William  Sherman,  knocked,  and  the  door  was  opened. 
James  Harris  in  his  testimony  before  the  committee  of 
Congress  swore:  "I  took  Mr.  WilHam  Sherman  out  of  the 
creek  and  examined  him.  Mr.  Whitman  was  with  me. 
Sherman's  skull  was  split  in  two  places,  and  some  of  his 
brain  was  washed  out  by  the  water.  A  large  hole  was  cut 
in  his  breast,  and  his  left  hand  was  cut  off  except  a  little 
piece  of  skin  on  one  side."  Sanborn  says:  "When  the 
bodies  of  the  dead  were  found,  there  went  up  a  cry  that  they 
had  been  mutilated;  but  this  was  because  of  the  weapons 
used."  Ordinarily  it  would  seem  that  two  gashes  through 
the  skull  from  which  the  brain  was  oozing  might  suffice 
without  the  extra  thrust  on  the  side  and  lopping  off  of  the 
hand. 

Another  of  the  victims  was  a  Mr.  Wilkinson,  who  was  the 
postmaster  at  Shermansville  (now  Lane),  and  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  territorial  legislature  of  Kansas.  Mrs.  Wilkin- 
son in  her  testimony  said  that  she  was  sick  in  bed  with  the 
measles;  that  she  begged  them  to  let  her  husband  stay  with 
her,  as  she  was  helpless.  "The  old  man  [Brown]  who  seemed 
to  be  in  command  looked  at  me  and  then  around  at  the  chil- 
dren, and  replied,  'You  have  neighbors.'  They  then  took 
my  husband  away.     One  of  them  came  back  and  took  two 

112 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

saddles.  The  next  morning  Mr.  Wilkinson  was  found.  I 
believe  that  one  of  Captain  Brown's  sons  was  in  the  party 
which  murdered  my  husband.  My  husband  was  a  quiet 
man  and  was  not  engaged  in  arresting  or  disturbing  any- 
body." 

Three  Doyles,  father  and  sons,  one  of  the  lads  under  age, 
were  also  murdered.  John  Doyle,  a  son  of  the  murdered 
man,  testified :  "I  found  my  father  and  one  brother,  William, 
lying  dead  in  the  road  about  two  hundred  yards  from  the 
house.  I  saw  my  other  brother  lying  dead  on  the  ground 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  from  the  house.  His 
fingers  were  cut  off,  and  his  arms  were  cut  off;  his  head  was 
cut  open,  and  there  was  a  large  hole  in  his  breast.  William's 
head  was  cut  open,  and  a  hole  was  in  his  jaw,  as  if  made  by 
a  knife;  and  a  hole  was  also  in  his  side.  My  father  was 
shot  in  the  forehead  and  stabbed  in  the  breast"  (page  i6o). 
This  done,  the  horses  and  saddles  of  the  dead  men  were 
taken  along  and,  according  to  Sanborn,  traded  off  in 
northern  Kansas. 

John  Brown  denied  killing  any  of  these  men  with  his  own 
hands,  and  yet  a  pistol-shot  was  fired,  and  Doyle  was  found 
with  a  bullet  through  the  forehead.  Salmon  Brown  says 
that  Owen  and  another  killed  the  Doyles ;  and  Villard  adds, 
"By  a  process  of  elimination  it  is  apparent  that  the  other 
could  only  have  been  himself."  Salmon  Brown  will  not 
positively  state  that  his  father  fired  this  shot,  but  admits 
that  no  one  else  in  the  party  pulled  a  trigger.  He  is  at  a 
loss  to  explain  why  the  shot  was  fired.  He  said  Doyle  was 
dead;  it  was  probable  that  the  old  man  fired  into  the  dead 
man's  skull  for  additional  moral  effect. 

Of  this  affair  Andrew  Johnson  said  in  the  United  States 
Senate:    "Innocent  and  unoffending  men  were  taken  out, 

113 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  in  the  midnight  hour  fell  victims  to  the  insatiable  thirst 
of  John  Brown  for  blood.  Then  it  was  that  he  shrank  from 
the  dimensions  of  a  human  being  into  those  of  a  reptile. 
Then  it  was,  if  not  before,  that  he  changed  his  character  to 
a  demon  who  had  lost  all  the  virtues  of  a  man." 

Professor  L.  W.  Spring,  in  his  Kansas,  says:  "John 
Brown's  statements  were  sufficiently  evasive  to  deceive 
members  of  his  own  family  and  personal  friends  who  long 
denied  that  he  led  the  foray.  The  five  squatters  upon 
whom  he  laid  a  tiger's  paw  were  not  exceptionally  bad  men ; 
and  the  squatters,  without  distinction  of  party,  denounced 
the  deed  as  'an  outrage  of  the  darkest  and  foulest  nature, 
by  midnight  assassins  who  murdered  and  mangled  them  in 
the  most  awful  manner.'  To  this  must  be  charged  most  of 
the  havoc  and  anarchy  in  which  the  Kansas  of  1855  weltered. 
It  set  afoot  retaliatory  violence,  and  finally  issued  in  a  total 
military  collapse  of  the  free-state  cause." 

Villard  says  (page  264) :  "Between  November  i,  1855,  and 
December  i,  1856,  about  two  hundred  people  are  known  to 
have  lost  their  lives  in  the  anarchical  conditions  which  pre- 
vailed, and  the  property  loss  in  this  period  is  officially  set 
down  at  not  less  than  two  millions  of  dollars.  However 
superior  in  character  and  intelligence  and  industry  the 
free-state  emigrants  indubitably  were  in  the  beginning, 
there  was  little  to  choose  between  the  border  ruffians  and 
the  Kansas  ruffians  in  midsummer  of  1856.  The  Whipples 
and  Harveys  and  Browns  plundered  and  robbed  as  freely 
on  one  side  as  did  the  Martin  Whites,  the  Reids,  and  the 
Tituses  on  the  other,  and  there  was  not  the  slightest  differ- 
ence in  their  methods." 

Concerning  the  Pottawattomie  murders,  the  governor  of 
the  territory  (Shannon),  on  May  31,   1856,  wrote  to   the 

114 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

President  of  the  United  States:  "The  respectability  of  the 
parties  and  the  cruelties  attending  these  murders  have  pro- 
duced an  extraordinary  state  of  excitement  in  that  portion 
of  the  territory  which  has  heretofore  remained  compara- 
tively quiet"  (Villard,  page  169). 

Major  John  Sedgwick,  who  later  won  undying  fame  as 
commander  of  a  corps  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  reported : 
"Five  men  were  taken  out  of  their  beds,  their  throats  cut, 
their  ears  cut  off,  and  their  persons  gashed  more  horribly 
than  our  savages  have  ever  done.  I  sincerely  think  that 
most  of  the  atrocities  have  been  committed  by  the  Free-soil 
party,  but  I  cannot  think  that  they  countenance  such  acts 
— that  is,  the  respectable  class"  (Villard,  page  169). 

Mr.  Adair,  a  Free-soiler,  when  Owen  Brown,  who  with  his 
brother  Salmon  had  cut  the  Doyles  to  death,  asked  to  stay 
all  night,  said  to  him:  "Get  away — get  away  as  quickly  as 
you  can.     You  are  a  vile  murderer,  a  marked  man." 

"'I  intend  to  be  a  marked  man,'  shouted  Owen,  and  rode 
away  on  one  of  the  murdered  man's  horses"  (according  to 
Mr.  Villard). 

John  Brown,  Jr.,  was  deposed  from  command  of  a  com- 
pany (Villard,  page  151)  because  a  man  rode  into  camp  in 
great  excitement,  saying,  "Five  men  have  been  killed  on 
Pottawattomie  Creek,  butchered  and  most  brutally  man- 
gled, and  old  John  Brown  has  done  it."  Jason  Brown  says: 
"This  information  caused  great  excitement  and  fear  among 
the  men  of  our  company,  and  a  feeling  arose  against  John 
and  myself  which  led  the  men  all  to  desert  us." 

Villard  says  (page  187):  "From  the  ethical  point  of 
view  John  Brown's  crime  on  the  Pottawattomie  cannot  be 
successfully  palliated  or  excused.  It  must  ever  remain  a 
complete  indictment  of  his  judgment  and  wisdom;    a  dark 

IIS 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

blot  upon  his  memory;  a  proof  that,  however  self -controlled, 
he  had  neither  true  respect  for  the  laws  nor  for  human  life, 
nor  a  knowledge  that  two  wrongs  never  make  a  right." 

Biographers  of  Brown,  notably  Sanborn  and  Redpath, 
disclaimed  his  reponsibility  or  participation  in  this  crime 
until  the  proof  was  so  positive  that  even  the  former  ac- 
cepted it.  He  then  justifies  the  murders  as  "executions" 
in  which  his  hero  became  judge  and  jury,  holding  midnight 
sessions  of  about  one  minute  each  for  each  defendant — 
"brief  but  sufficient  trials,"  as  he  beautifully  expresses  it. 
Sanborn's  qualifications  for  his  self-imposed  task  may  be 
judged  from  his  treatment  of  this  incident.  Redpath,  an- 
other "reliable"  historian,  says  he  was  twenty-five  miles 
away.  The  retaliatory  killings  at  the  Marais  des  Cygnes 
were  not  "executions,"  but  murders!  The  poet  Whittier, 
who  sang  of  the  Marais  des  Cygnes  outrage,  could  not  tune 
his  lyre  to  the  measure  of  the  Pottawattomie.  The  wrong 
ox  had  been  gored.  The  zealots  of  abolitionism  were  so 
far  lost  to  the  sense  of  justice  and  to  truth  itself  that 
they  made  of  themselves  the  apostles  of  misrepresentation. 
Witness  Longfellow's  "The  Slave  in  the  Dismal  Swamp" 
and  Whittier's  "Barbara  Frietchie,"  recited  by  thousands 
of  impressionable  school-children  and  read  by  many  more 
thousands  of  older  persons  who  may  never  know  the  truth 
and  will  accept  this  version  of  an  incident  which  occurred 
only  in  the  imagination  of  the  poet  as  an  indictment  of  the 
Southern  soldier  and  of  his  section. 

I  know  from  a  brother  physician,  an  honorable  member 
of  my  profession  and  of  this  same  family  in  Frederick,  who 
assured  me  that  his  aged  relative  never  saw  Stonewall  Jack- 
son or  a  single  Confederate  soldier,  and  that  when  the  poet 
of  New  England  sang  of  her  as  leaning  out  of  the  window 

ii6 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

waving  her  country's  flag  in  Jackson's  face  and  daring  him 
to  shoot,  she  was  a  block  away,  hopelessly  bedridden.  Her 
joints  were  stiffened  to  such  a  painful  degree  that  not  only 
was  it  impossible  for  her  to  get  out  of  bed  and  walk,  but 
she  could  not  even  have  stood  upright  had  she  been  placed 
on  her  feet! 

As  late  as  November  lo,  19 13,  this  often  resurrected  false- 
hood arose  again  from  the  dead  through  the  medium  of  the 
New  York  Sun,  and  was  again  temporarily  laid  to  rest  by 
Professor  W.  Gordon  McCabe,  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  with 
the  timely  aid  of  Mr.  Valerius  Ebert,  of  Frederick,  Mary- 
land.    The  original  was  published  in  the  Baltimore  Sun: 

Sir,  —  I  have  just  read,  a  communication  in  the  Sun,  purporting  to 
set  forth  certain  facts  in  relation  to  the  Ufe  and  character  of  the  late 
Barbara  Frietchie,  the  heroine  of  Whittier's  celebrated  war  poem.  It 
may  be  proper  to  state  that  I  am  the  nephew  of  Dame  Barbara,  and 
had  the  settling  up  of  her  husband's  estate  in  the  capacity  of  ad- 
ministrator. 

This  necessarily  threw  me  into  frequent  communication  with  the 
ancient  and  venerable  dame.  Barbara  Frietchie,  my  venerable  aunt, 
was  not  a  lady  of  twenty-two  summers,  but  an  ancient  dame  of  ninety- 
six  winters  when  she  departed  this  life. 

As  to  the  waving  of  the  Federal  flag  in  the  face  of  the  rebels  by 
Dame  Barbara  on  the  occasion  of  Stonewall  Jackson's  march  through 
Frederick,  truth  requires  me  to  say  that  Stonewall  Jackson  with  his 
troops  did  not  pass  Barbara  Frietchie's  residence  at  all,  but  passed- 
up  what  in  this  city  is  popularly  called  "The  Mill  Alley,"  about  three 
hundred  yards  above  her  residence,  then  passed  due  west  to  Antietam, 
and  thus  out  of  the  city. 

But  another  and  stranger  fact  with  regard  to  this  matter  may  be 
presented:  the  poem  by  Whittier  represents  our  venerable  relative 
(then  ninety-six  years  of  age)  as  nimbly  ascending  to  her  attic  win- 
dow and  waving  her  small  Federal  flag  defiantly  in  the  face  of  Stone- 
wall Jackson's  troops.  Now,  what  are  the  facts  at  this  point?  Dame 
Barbara  was,  at  the  moment  of  the  passing  of  that  distinguished  general 
and  his  forces  through  Frederick,  bedridden  and  helpless,  and  lost  the 
power  of  locomotion.     She  could  at  this  period  only  move  as  she  was 

117 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

moved  by  the  help  of  her  attendants.  These  are  the  true  and  stem 
facts,  proving  that  Whittier's  poem  upon  this  subject  is  fiction,  pure 
fiction,  and  nothing  else,  without  even  the  remotest  semblance  or  re- 
semblance of  fact. 

Valerius  Ebert. 
Frederick  City,  AIaryland,  August  27,  1874. 


Such  is  the  explicit  testimony  of  one  who  could  "speak 
with  authority,"  and  such  must  be  reckoned  the  real  "truth 
about  Barbara  Frietchie." 

This  same  otherwise  lovable  man  is  also  responsible  for 
another  unpoetic  untruth,  "Brown  of  Ossawatomie,"  which 
served  its  purpose  of  aiding  to  establish  his  martyrdom — 
viz.,  the  kissing  of  a  negro  baby  as  he  was  walking  to  the 
gallows,  which  deed,  according  to  the  standard  ot  zealots, 
cleaned  his  record  of  all  misdeeds.  Even  Sanborn  now  ad- 
mits it  could  not  have  taken  place;  and,  in  fact,  nothing  of 
the  kind  did  occur. 

Brown's  next  notorious  expedition  was  over  the  border 
in  I^Iissouri  on  December  20,  1859.  "With  him  were  a 
well-known  horse-thief,  'Pickles'  by  designation,  Charles 
Jemison,  Jeremiah  Anderson,  Gill,  Kagi,  and  two  young 
men  named  Ayres,  besides  one  or  two  others.  At  midnight 
Hicklan's  (a  slave-owning  citizen's)  door  was  quickly  forced 
by  men  with  pointed  revolvers,  and  he  was  informed  of 
the  mission  of  the  raiders.  Gill,  one  of  the  raiders,  says: 
'Watches  and  other  articles  were  taken;  some  of  our  num- 
ber proved  to  be  mere  adventurers,  ready  to  take  from 
friend  or  foe  as  opportunity  offered'"  (Villard). 

Mr.  Hicklan  testified:  "Nothing  that  was  taken  was  ever 
recovered.  I  learn  that  it  was  stated  by  John  Brown  that 
he  made  his  men  retiun  all  the  property  they  had  taken 
from  me.     This  is  not  true.     They  did  not  give  anything 

118 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

c 

back.  Brown  said  to  me  that  we  might  get  our  property 
back  if  we  could;  that  he  defied  us  and  the  whole  United 
States  to  follow  him"  (Villard,  page  368). 

"Besides  the  negroes  Brown  took  from  the  Lawrence 
estate  two  good  horses,  a  yoke  of  oxen,  a  good  wagon,  har- 
ness, saddles,  a  considerable  quantity  of  provisions,  bacon, 
flour,  meal,  coffee,  sugar,  etc.,  all  the  bedding  and  clothing 
of  the  negroes,  Hicklan's  shotgun,  overcoat,  boots,  and 
many  other  articles  belonging  to  the  whites.  From  Larue 
were  taken  five  negroes,  six  head  of  horses,  harness,  a  wagon, 
a  lot  of  bedding  and  clothing,  provisions,  and,  in  short,  all 
the  loot  available  and  portable"  (Villard,  page  369). 

Meanwhile  Stevens's  expedition  had  released  but  one 
slave,  and  that  at  the  cost  of  the  owner's  life.  David  Cruse, 
a  wealthy  settler,  had  a  woman  slave  whom  the  Daniels 
party  wished  to  take  along.  Stevens  had  hardly  entered 
the  house  when  he  said  he  thought  Mr.  Cruse  was  reaching 
for  a  weapon.  He  fired  instantly,  and  the  old  man  dropped 
dead.  Stevens,  who  was  hanged  at  Charlestown  with  Brown, 
freely  admitted  the  killing,  though  it  weighed  heavily  upon 
him.  The  Cruse  family  charged  wholesale  looting  of  the 
house,  the  taking  of  two  yoke  of  oxen,  a  wagon-load  of  pro- 
visions, eleven  mules,  and  two  horses.  John  Brown  says  of 
this  expedition  that  a  white  man  who  resisted  the  liberation 
was  killed;  and  Sanborn  adds,  "He  left  Kansas  pursued 
by  United  States  troops." 

On  pages  370,  37i  Villard  says:  "Naturally,  the  death  of 
Mr.  Cruse  created  great  excitement  in  Missouri,  for,  Stevens's 
narrative  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  he  ranked  as  a 
peaceful,  law-abiding  citizen,  accustomed  to  minding  his 
own  business.  This  murder  instantly  imperiled  the  safety 
of  all  the  Kansas  settlements  near  the  border  line,  for  it  was 

119 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

wholly  unprovoked  and  without  a  shadow  of  the  usual 
apology — that  Cruse  had  been  guilty  of  outrages  upon  the 
people  of  Kansas.  Finally,  for  this  crime  the  President  of 
the  United  State  offered  a  reward  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  for  the  arrest  of  Brown  and  Montgomery,  and  the 
governor  of  Missouri  three  thousand  dollars  for  the  cap- 
ture of  Brown."  Sanborn  admits  that  even  in  Kansas  he 
was  "proscribed."  Villard  also  says  that  "Brown,  on 
March  25,  1859,  sent  from  Ashtabula,  Ohio,  one  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars,  part  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the 
horses  taken  from  the  Missouri  farmers  to  his  family  at 
North  Elba."  Part  of  this  particular  fund  paid  for  a  yoke 
of  oxen  for  the  Brown  family. 

In  this  period  as  a  fugitive  from  justice  he  lived  under 
various  aliases:  Isaac  Smith,  Shubel  Morgan,  James  Smith, 
and  Nelson  Hawkins.  Naturally  he  writes,  "I  am  advised 
that  one  of  Uncle  Sam's  hounds  is  on  my  track." 

It  will  amuse  students  of  the  art  of  war  after  reading 
Xenophon's  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  and  Napoleon's 
disastrous  march  from  Moscow  to  the  Berezina,  to  follow 
the  historian  Sanborn's  detailed  description  of  the  retreat 
of  Captain  John  Brown  from  the  plantations  he  had  robbed 
in  Missouri  to  Detroit,  Michigan,  and  thence  across  the 
river  to  Canada.  Although  Xenophon  came  home  a  loser, 
he  was  in  pretty  fair  shape,  considering  the  difficulties  he 
had  to  encounter.  Napoleon  lost  about  everything;  but 
Brown,  like  a  rolling  ball  of  snow,  gathered  as  he  went. 
This  from  Sanborn: 

"The  retreat  from  southern  Kansas  with  his  freedmen, 
and  particularly  the  first  step  of  his  journey,  was  one  of 
the  boldest  adventures  of  Brown.  With  a  price  on  his  head, 
with  but  one  white  companion,  himself  an  outlaw,  with 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

their  property  loaded  into  an  odd-looking  wagon  drawn  by 
the  cattle  taken  from  the  slave-owner  in  Missouri,  Brown 
pushed  forward  in  the  dead  of  winter,  relying  on  the  mercy 
of  God  and  on  his  own  stout  heart."  ^ 

The  "himself  an  outlaw"  was  Whipple,  alias  Stevens, 
who  murdered  Mr.  Cruse,  and  who  was  hung  at  Charlestown. 
It  took  Brown  nearly  three  months  to  pull  through. 

Eli  Thayer,  who  had  employed  Brown  until  he  learned 
his  real  character,  says  that  he  stole  on  this  expedition  some 
four  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  property,  and  instead  of 
going  directly  to  Canada,  which  he  could  easily  have  done 
in  two  weeks,  as  no  one  hindered  him,  he  dawdled  along  in 
all  sorts  of  meanderings,  working  everybody  for  any  and 
every  thing  he  could  get,  sending  agents  in  all  directions  to 
excite  sympathy  for  the  poor  captive  slaves,  and  incidental- 
ly to  get  money  for  John  Brown.  The  retreat  led  through 
Kansas,  Nebraska,  Iowa,  Illinois,  and  Michigan  to  Canada, 

"At  Muddy  Creek,  with  only  twenty-three  white  men 
and  a  dozen  negroes,  he  put  to  rout  a  marshal  with  eighty 
men,  chased  them  six  miles,  and  brought  back  four  prisoners 
and  five  horses.  The  captain  told  the  prisoners  they  could 
proceed  on  foot.  Their  horses  were  retained  for  prudential 
motives!  and  given  to  the  brave  Topeka  boys"  (Sanborn, 
page  485).  It  may  be  recalled  that  in  the  great  battle  of 
Ossawatomie  Brown  reported  some  seventy  of  the  enemy 
hors  de  combat,  when  not  a  single  man  was  killed. 

The  Kansas  strategist  acquired  an  item  of  "one  hundred 
and  thirty-eight  dollars  in  cash  received  on  his  private  ac- 
count of  J.  H.  Painter."  Also  something  from  Gerrit 
Smith,  who,  having  "heard  of  his  foray  in  Missoiiri,"  wrote 
to  friend  Sanborn  as  follows  (page  483) : 

9  ^  Sanborn's  Rhapsody,  page  484. 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Petersboro,  January  22,  i8jQ. 
"My  dear  Sir, — I  have  yours  of  19th.  I  am  happy  to 
learn  that  the  Underground  Railroad  is  so  prosperous  in 
Kansas.  I  send  you  twenty-five  dollars,  which  I  wish  you 
to  send  to  our  noble  friend,  John  Brown.  The  topography 
of  Missouri  is  unfavorable.  Would  that  a  spur  of  the  Alle- 
ghany extended  from  the  east  to  the  west  borders  of  the  state.'* 

The  italics  are  in  the  original,  and  are  significant,  as  they 
refer  to  the  proposed  invasion  of  the  South  to  arm  the 
negroes.  Villard  says  Brown  sent  his  wife  one  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  from  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  in  Ohio  of 
the  horses  stolen  in  Missouri.  But  these  were  insignificant 
sums  when  compared  with  the  amount  contributed  by  the 
New  England  contingent.  Mr.  George  L.  Stearns,  one  of 
the  militant  group  of  abolitionists,  was  a  gold-mine  for  the 
"hero  and  martyr."  How  much  he  worked  this  placer  for 
it  is  impossible  to  determine;  but,  being  needy,  as  was  his 
wont,  he  wrote  and  read  at  the  psychological  moment  to 
Mrs.  Stearns's  "Old  Brown's  Farewell,"  the  last  lines  of 
which  are:  "I  am  destitute  of  horses,  baggage-wagons, 
tents,  harness,  saddles,  bridles,  holsters,  spurs  and  belts; 
camp  equipage,  such  as  cooking  and  eating  utensils,  blankets, 
knapsacks,  intrenching-tools,  axes,  shovels,  spades,  mattocks, 
crowbars;  have  not  a  supply  of  ammunition;  have  not 
money  sufficient  to  pay  freight  and  traveling  expenses ;  and 
left  my  family  poorly  supplied  with  common  necessities." 
The  dear  lady  says:  "I  wish  I  could  picture  him  as  he  sat 
and  read,  lifting  his  eyes  to  mine  now  and  then,  to  see 
how  it  impressed  me."  Mrs.  Stearns  was  won  over,  very 
much  won  over,  as  was  her  husband,  for  "when  breakfast 
was  over  he  [Mr.  Stearns]  drove  to  the  residence  of  Judge 

122 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Russell  and  handed  Captain  Brown  his  check  for  seven 
thousand  dollars  F' 

Discredited  in  Kansas  by  reason  of  his  unlawftil  meth- 
ods, disowned  by  such  honorable  antislavery  leaders  as  EH 
Thayer,  Amos  A.  Lawrence,  Governor  Charles  Robinson, 
O.  E.  Learned,  and  a  host  of  men  whose  names  are  the 
synonyms  of  honor,  integrity,  and  truthfulness;  dismissed 
from  their  service  and  pay  as  unworthy  of  confidence  or 
respect;  an  outlaw,  with  rewards  for  his  apprehension 
offered  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  by  the 
Governor  of  Missouri;  a  fugitive  from  justice,  slipping 
about  under  various  aliases;  an  Ishmaelite  with  no  possible 
means  of  a  living  for  himself  and  the  pitiable  family  he  had 
long  neglected,  except  what  he  might  obtain  from  the 
wealthy  zealots  among  the  militant  abolitionists  or  appro- 
priate by  violence,  John  Brown  was  now  in  a  position  to 
undertake  even  a  venture  that  might  involve  some  risk. 
Like  Macbeth  in  more  ways  than  one,  he  was  so  hopelessly 
advanced  in  bloody  deeds  'twas  just  as  easy  to  go  on  as  to 
recede.  He  had  had  in  mind  what  his  historian  dignifies 
by  calling  it  an  "invasion  of  the  South"  for  the  liberation 
of  the  slaves.  It  might  or  might  not  involve  a  wide-spread 
insurrection  and  a  repetition  on  a  grand  scale  in  many  re- 
mote communities  of  Nat  Turner's  massacres  in  Southamp- 
ton. He  had  said  it  was  better  for  a  whole  generation  of 
white  men,  women,  and  children  to  be  wiped  out  rather 
than  slavery  should  continue.  He  knew  what  had  been 
done  in  Haiti,  San  Domingo,  and  in  Virginia.  Mr.  San- 
bom,  who  conspired  with  him,  and  who  more  than  all  others, 
perhaps,  is  responsible  for  this  apotheosis,  regales  us  with 
the  record  of  loud  shouting,  "Thank  God,  the  negroes 
have  risen  in  Virginia  at  last!"  when  the  news  came  to 

123 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Hudson,  Ohio,  about  Nat  Turner's  murderous  insurrection. 
Will  the  reader  calmly  and  dispassionately  think  of  this, 
and  then  read  the  appalling  story,  only  a  part  of  which  is 
given  in  this  book. 

It  is  stated  that  Brown  had  thought  of  going  down  the 
Mississippi  to  near  the  Louisiana  line,  where  the  negroes 
were  ten  to  one  more  numerous  than  the  whites,  but  in  all 
probability  he  abandoned  this  project  as  the  chances  of 
escape  in  case  of  disaster  would  not  be  so  good  at  such  a  dis- 
tance from  the  Mason  and  Dixon  line.  No  one  who  care- 
fully studies  each  step  of  his  career  at  this  crisis  can  doubt 
that  he  had  no  idea  of  being  caught  or  of  dying.  Had  he 
been  a  really  brave  man  and  of  heroic  mold,  ready  and 
willing  to  die  for  the  liberation  of  the  slaves,  nothing  would 
have  been  easier  than  to  have  gone  down  the  Ohio  and 
the  Mississippi  in  a  trading  fiatboat,  in  which  his  guns  and 
pikes  and  men  could  have  been  readily  concealed,  or  on  a 
raft  of  logs,  which  woiild  have  disarmed  suspicion,  and  to 
have  opened  his  campaign  of  "arming  the  slaves"  where  it 
was  feasible.  He  knew  that  in  1811  in  St.  John's  Parish, 
in  Louisiana,  the  negroes,  unaided  from  without,  had  risen, 
and  that  it  took  a  week  to  put  the  insurrection  down.  With 
a  white  leader  and  his  armed  company  and  guns,  and  pikes 
for  those  who  didn't  know  how  to  shoot,  what  a  great  suc- 
cess he  might  have  made  of  it! 

The  truth,  as  I  believe  it,  is  that  John  Brown  was  a 
craven  at  heart.  He  and  his  two  sons  ran  away  from  the 
click  of  a  gun  from  the  inside  of  a  cabin  when  they  were 
calling  unsuspecting  men  and  boys  to  the  door  and,  finding 
them  unarmed,  hacking  them  to  pieces  with  cleavers — in 
order  not  to  raise  an  alarm  in  that  bloody  night  on  the 
Pottawattomie.      There   is   undoubted   testimony  that   he 

124 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ran  at  Ossawatomie,  from  which  he  emerges  as  a  hero  at 
the  hands  of  the  martyrists.  Read  Brown's  report  of  this 
great  battle,  with  its  sixty  or  seventy  of  the  enemy  slain, 
and  then  read  the  truth,  that  not  one  of  the  enemy  was 
killed,  and  that  there  was  "a  general  skedaddle,  John  Brown 
with  the  rest,"  and  you  begin  to  get  the  measure  of  a  colossal 
fraud.  He  evidently  expected  to  escape  into  the  moun- 
tains and  then  to  his  harbor  of  refuge  in  the  North  in  case 
of  failure  at  Harper's  Ferry.  "He  and  his  men  had  studied 
the  country  carefully  and  knew  it  a  hundred  times  better 
than  any  of  the  inhabitants.  Every  avenue  of  escape  was 
noted"  (Sanborn,  page  556).  It  was  the  measure  of  a  cow- 
ard to  take  helpless  citizens  and  hold  them  as  hostages  in 
constant  danger  of  being  shot  to  protect  himself  in  the 
engine-house,  in  which,  from  a  port-hole,  he,  rifle  in  hand, 
was  killing  or  trying  to  kill  his  assailants.  He  had  refused 
to  surrender,  saying,  "I  prefer  to  die  just  here,"  but  when 
the  crisis  came  what  did  he  do? 

"One  lone  man,  Lieutenant  Green,  of  the  United  States 
Marine  Corps,  forced  his  way  through  a  small  aperture 
made  by  a  ladder  used  as  a  battering-ram,  jumped  on  top 
of  the  engine,  and  stood  a  second  mid  a  shower  of  balls. 
Singling  out  John  Brown,  he  sprang  at  him,  having  no  weap- 
on but  a  small  officer's  sword  which  bent  double  with  the 
first  thrust  or  blow,  when  Brown  fell  down,  with  his  head 
between  his  knees,  permitting  Green  to  maul  him  with  the 
bent  weapon,  and  offering  no  resistance  whatever!" 

Brown  was  at  last  face  to  face  with  a  fearless  man,  armed 
as  he  was ;  he  had  boasted  he  preferred  to  die  just  here,  but 
when  he  had  the  opportunity  to  fight  he  behaved  as  stated 
before  in  the  words  of  an  eye-witness,  one  of  the  hostages. 
If  there  is  a  suggestion  of  the  heroic  in  this,  I  fail  to  dis- 

125 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

cern  it.  Even  after  he  was  caught  red-handed  he  did  not 
abandon  hope  or  the  effort  to  escape  the  just  penalty  of  his 
crimes.  He  offered  Judge  Thomas  Russell  (among  others), 
who  was  in  the  conspiracy,  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
"and  personal  property  sufficient  to  pay  a  most  liberal  fee 
to  yourself  "  to  come  and  try  to  get  him  off,  and  in  his  anxiety 
he  added,  "Do  not  send  an  ultra  abolitionist!"  They  had 
taken  Colonel  Washington's  silver  and  watch,  and  probably 
other  valuables.  Brown  had  no  personal  property  beyond 
what  he  had  obtained  illegally.  To  Senator  Mason  he  spoke 
falsely  when  he  said  he  furnished  most  of  the  money  for 
his  expedition,  and  that  he  had  killed  no  man  except  in  fair 
fight.  Standing  by  and  ordering  his  sons  to  kill  his  victims 
was  not  killing  unfairly,  as  he  interpreted  it. 

Of  the  trial,  Sanborn,  his  rhapsodist,  says:  "He  was  ably 
defended."  Brown  said:  "I  feel  entirely  satisfied  with  the 
treatment  I  have  received  on  my  trial.  It  has  been  more 
generous  than  I  expected."  He  was  sentenced  to  be  exe- 
cuted on  December  2,  1859.  Then — and  only  then — when 
all  hope  of  escape  was  gone,  came  the  pose  of  martyrdom. 
Sanborn  sounds  the  slogan  when  he  says:  "But  he  soon  be- 
gan to  see  that  his  mistake"  (in  not  running  earlier)  "was 
leading  him  to  his  most  glorious  success,  a  victory  such  as 
he  might  never  have  won  in  his  own  way."  A  deluge  of 
letters  flowed  from  the  Charlestown  jail  to  all  points  of  the 
compass  but  one — pathetic  appeals  of  a  dying  man,  of  a 
poor  man  with  a  helpless  family,  of  a  man  who  had  lost 
three  sons  and  a  son-in-law  and  was  himself  soon  to  be 
judicially  murdered  by  slave-owners,  and  all  because  he  had 
tried  to  free  the  slaves. 

Nobody  stopped  to  think  that  one  of  his  dead  sons, 
Frederick,  was  a  murderer  in  Kansas  before  he  in  turn  was 

126 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

murdered  by  a  proslavery  preacher  who  got  the  drop  on 
him;  that  Owen,  Salmon,  and  OHver,  and  son-in-law 
Thompson  cut  some  of  the  Pottawattomie  helpless  and 
unarmed  victims  into  slices  with  cleavers;  and  that  the 
leading  candidate  for  martyrdom  had  a  long  and  varied 
career  of  deception,  embezzlement,  robbery,  and  murder. 
Oh  no!  The  maxim  of  Napoleon,  the  great  master  in  the 
art  of  pulling  the  wool  over  men's  eyes — namely,  "Not 
facts,  but  sentiment  and  imagination,  if  you  would  rule 
mankind" — was  the  motto  of  the  crusade  of  martyrdom.  It 
spread  like  wild-fire  among  the  militant  abolitionists  of  the 
North;  it  appealed  to  thousands  who  never  stopped  to 
reason,  only  to  sympathize.  It  found  a  ready  lodgment  in 
the  "Concord  Circle  of  Authors."  On  December  2,  1859, 
at  the  hour  at  which  the  execution  was  to  take  place  at 
Charlestown,  with  time  allowance  carefully  calculated,  the 
circle  began  at  Concord  the  Crusade  of  Martyrdom.  San- 
born furnished  "A  Dirge";  Alcott  read  the  "Martyr's  Ser- 
vice" and  quoted  appropriately  from  Solomon,  David,  the 
Psalms,  and  Plato ;  Thoreau  chimed  in  with  selections  from 
the  poets,  and  the  Reverend  E.  H.  Sears  "offered  prayer." 
Alcott,  in  his  Diary,  notes:  "The  spectacle  of  a  martyrdom 
such  as  his  must  needs  be,  will  be  greater  service,"  etc.,  etc. 
But  it  was  left  to  Mr.  F.  B.  Sanborn  to  settle  the  matter  in 
this  rhapsodical  outburst:  "From  the  crucifixion  at  Jeru- 
salem a  light  sprang  forth  that  was  reflected  back  without 
obstruction  from  the  ugly  gallows  of  Virginia.  John  Brown 
took  up  his  cross  and  followed  the  Lord,  and  it  was  enough 
for  this  servant  that  he  was  as  his  Master!" 


XI 

A  DISSERTATION  UPON  THE  PERVERSION  OF  FACTS — SKETCHES 

FROM    THE    BACKWOODS    OF    ALABAMA THE    GRAPE-VINE 

TELEGRAPH — THE     LIARS'    TOURNAMENT THE     SHERIFF'S 

STORY    OF    "when   THE    YANKEES    FIRST   CAME " 

Although  bom  a  Presbyterian  and  brought  up  with  a 
Bible  and  the  Westminster  Confession  in  either  hand,  I 
must  own  up  to  a  mental  reservation  in  accepting  the  defini- 
tion of  a  lie  as  the  "wilful  perversion  of  fact."  I  would 
rather  define  a  real  lie  as  perversion  of  fact  with  intent 
to  avoid  an  obligation  or  to  harm  another.  Deep  down 
in  its  heart  the  human  family  believes  that  there  are  mo- 
ments when  lying  is  a  near  virtue.  Judas  told  the  truth 
when  he  gave  his  Master  away,  while  Peter  perverted  fact 
three  times  with  such  a  rising  inflection  that  his  last  whopper 
started  the  cock  crowing — and  yet  we  all  despise  the  man 
who  told  the  truth  and  applaud  the  liar. 

If  I  ever  write  a  book  and  dedicate  it  to  one  of  the  dis- 
ciples, I  shall  not  forget  Peter.  He  was  human  enough  to 
get  mad  and  to  qualify  his  nouns  with  forcible  adjectives, 
and  even  went  so  far  once  on  a  time  as  to  cut  off  the  ear 
of  the  servant  of  the  high  priest.  Then,  too,  Peter  believed 
in  himself.  How  we  all  look  up  to  a  man  who  has  the  cour- 
age of  his  convictions!  He  wasn't  willing  to  let  any  living 
man  get  ahead  of  him,  so  when  the  Master  came  near  to 
the   boat   walking  across   the   surface   of  the  water,  as  if 

128 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

it  were  the  Mall  in  Central  Park,  Peter  said,  "I  can  do  it 
if  He  can,"  and  overboard  he  went.  Alas  for  Peter!  the 
law  of  gravitation  refused  to  be  suspended  in  his  case,  and 
he  had  to  shout  to  his  Master  for  help  and  swim  until  it 
was  at  hand. 

It  may  be  that  I  lean  toward  the  twisting  of  facts  because 
I  am  a  doctor.  In  my  profession  we  often  feel  justified  in 
deceiving  our  patients,  especially  when  the  truth  might 
contribute  to  their  mental  or  physical  undoing.  The  fact 
that  we  are  caught  at  it  does  not  discourage  us  or  stop  the 
practice.  I  was  on  one  occasion  "sitting  up"  with  a  very 
dear  and  very  sick  friend,  the  late  Dr.  J.  Marion  Sims.  He 
was  suffering  acutely,  and  begged  so  persistently  for  a  hypo- 
dermic injection  of  morphine  that  I  said  at  last,  in  affected 
sincerity:  "Well,  if  you  will  have  it,  I'll  give  it  to  you;  but 
you  must  take  the  responsibility,  for  you  know  Doctors 
Loomis  and  Jane  way  have  forbidden  it." 

He  said  he  would,  and  so  I  went  through  all  the  forms  of 
sterilizing  the  solution  and  the  instrument,  inserted  the 
needle  and  gave  him — nothing  but  plain  water.  The  light 
was  turned  down,  and  I  went  back  to  the  cot  by  the  bed- 
side, feigning  sleep,  but  listening.  In  a  few  minutes  I  heard 
a  whisper  calling  me.     He  said: 

"How  much  morphine  did  you  give  me?" 

I  put  on  my  best  Presbyterian  face  and,  looking  him 
straight  in  the  eye,  said,  "A  fourth  of  a  grain." 

Quick  as  a  flash  he  said,  "Wyeth,  you're  a  liar,  and  you 
know  it!" 

I  wrote  on  the  chart,  "Diagnosis  correct." 

Lawyers,  too,  are  said  at  times  to  wander  from  the  straight 
and  narrow  path  of  truth.  On  one  occasion  a  group  of  this 
profession,  in  selecting  a  site   for   the  county  court-house, 

129 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

requested  a  Baptist  preacher  to  officiate  in  dedicating  this 

bit  of  earth  to  its  great  purpose.     He  opened  the  services 

by  asking  those  present  to  join  in  singing  that  well-known 

hymn — 

Come,  trembling  sinner,  view  the  ground 
Where  you  shall  shortly  lie — 

If  Bobby  Bums  is  to  be  believed,  even  our  clerical  friends 
occasionally  part  company  with  facts.  In  that  irreverent 
poem  entitled  "Death  and  Doctor  Hornbook,"  he  says: 

Some  books  are  lies  frae  end  to  end, 
An'  some  great  lies  were  never  penn'd; 
E'en  ministers  they  ha'e  been  kenn'd, 

In  holy  rapture, 
A  rousing  whid  at  times  to  vend 

An'  nail't  wi'  Scripture. 

Even  a  soldier  may  find  it  necessary  to  protect  himself 
by  a  false  statement.  In  one  of  my  war-time  experiences 
I  had  to  go  into  the  Union  lines  on  an  urgent  errand.  The 
night  was  dark,  and  the  little  light  which  the  stars  were 
shedding  was  shut  out  by  the  overhanging  forest  and  the 
dense  undergrowth,  which  grew  right  up  to  the  edges  of  the 
narrow  country  roadway.  Suddenly  as  I  struck  the  enemy's 
pickets  my  horse  shied,  and  as  I  gave  him  the  spurs  I  recog- 
nized the  dim  outlines  of  two  men  as  they  sprang  to  one 
side  to  keep  from  being  run  over.  Our  interview  was  brief, 
and  very  hurried  on  my  part;  but  had  I  told  those  two 
pickets  the  truth  as  to  who  I  was  and  what  I  was  up  to, 
the  reader  would  have  been  spared  the  present   infliction. 

The  definition  once  given,  that  "a  lie  is  an  abomination 
in  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  but  an  ever-present  help  in  time  of 
trouble,"  might  apply  to  such  a  situation.  There  is  cur- 
rent a  positive,  comparative,  and  superlative  classification, 

130 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

as  lies,  damned  lies,  and  statistics.  In  my  boyhood  days 
down  in  Alabama  you  might  be  called  a  liar,  and  survive 
with  something  of  character  and  reputation  by  promptly 
replying,  "You're  another";  but  when  in  a  moment  of 
excitement  or  anger  one  boy  called  another  a  "damned  liar" 
he  had  to  fight  or  go  to  Texas.  No  boy  ever  took  that  in- 
sult and  retained  the  respect  of  his  playmates,  or  even  of 
the  grown-ups  in  that  community.  Whenever  one  of  our 
crowd  took  it  into  his  head  that  he  wanted  a  fight  with 
another  boy,  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  call  him  a  "damned 
liar,"  and  the  fight  was  on.  The  only  delay  was  in  a  rapid 
exfoliation  of  hat  and  coat,  and  in  summer-time  the  hat 
alone  was  in  the  way.  I  suppose  boys  are  alike  the  world 
over,  and  in  these  engagements  the  usual  rules  of  warfare 
were  enforced.  You  could  pull  hair,  and  hit  with  your  fists 
anywhere  above  or  below  the  belt,  smash  a  nose  or  blacken 
an  eye  or  two,  clench  and  wrestle  and  bang  away  until  one 
or  the  other  "hollered,"  but  you  dared  not  choke,  scratch, 
bite,  gouge,  or  kick.  If  you  were  guilty  of  one  of  these 
reprehensible  practices  the  onlookers  intervened  and  declared 
the  victim  the  victor,  and  from  that  time  on  the  offender 
was  an  Ishmaelite,  with  every  hand  against  him. 

Modern  society  recognizes  very  properly  the  "white  lie," 
which  is  accepted  as  a  distortion  of  fact,  not  only  without 
intent  to  do  an  injury,  but  often  to  avoid  wounding  the 
sensibilities,  or  to  amuse,  and  thereby  benefit,  another. 

One  of  the  cherished  memories  of  my  youth  is  that  of 
an  intimate  association  with  a  man  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  my  senior,  who  was  endowed  by  nature  with  such  a 
keen  sense  of  humor,  coupled  with  a  genius  for  invention 
and  exaggeration,  that  his  companionship  was  always  wel- 
come.    With  the  straightest  face  and  in  the  most  earnest 

131 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  impressive  way  he  would  tell  of  the  most  impossible 
happenings.     Up  to  a  certain  age  I  believed  everything  he 
told  me,  and  when  it  dawned  upon  my  aw^akening  reason 
that  I  was  the  victim  of  a  romancer  I  felt  something  of  the 
same  sickening  sense  that  came  over  me  when  I  first  learned 
that  Santa  Claus  really  didn't  come  down  the  chimney. 
All  the  same,  I  loved  and  admired  this  gentle,  gifted,  blue- 
eyed,  and  soft-voiced  old  friend,  who  long  ago  knocked  at 
the  door  of  heaven;  and  if  St.  Peter  knows  a  good  thing 
when  he  sees  it  (and  I  think  he  does),  James  Swiverly  is  on 
the  inside.     If  I  am  ever  lucky  enough  to  get  there  with 
him  I'll  lay  aside  my  harp  at  any  time  to  hear  him  talk. 
At  heart  this  man  was  truthful  and  the  soul  of  honor.     He 
became  the  most  popular  man  in  our  county,  constable  of 
his  beat,  sheriff,  and  a  member  of  the  legislature.     He  was 
of  humble  origin  and  uneducated.     The  district  in  which 
he  was  born  was  for  many  years  represented  in  Congress 
by  a  statesman  who  boasted  that  there  was  no  use  for 
an  education  beyond    the  three    R's — readin',   'ritin',  and 
'rithmetic.      In    frontier    days — for    we    grew    up    in    the 
Cherokee  country  of  northern  Alabama — the  school  facili- 
ties in  Honey-Comb  Cove  were  limited.     In  all  probability 
neither  his  opportunities  nor  his  aspirations  carried  him 
beyond  the  simpler  forms  of  spelling. 

In  addition  to  his  genial  disposition,  which  brought  him 
in  friendly  touch  and  sympathy  with  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  our  county,  it  may  be  that  something  of  his 
political  success  was  due  to  a  serious  lameness  which  in- 
capacitated him  for  physical  labor,  and  when  the  war  came 
on  barred  him  from  military  duty.  One  leg  was  fully  six 
inches  shorter  than  the  other,  and,  as  he  made  no  attempt 
to  correct  the  inequahty  by  wearing  a  high  shoe,  his  limp- 

132 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ing  gait  made  of  him  a  rather  grotesque  figure  as  he  went 
bobbing  up  and  down.  With  a  boy's  curiosity  I  asked  him 
how  it  happened  that  one  of  his  legs  was  so  much  shorter 
than  the  other.  We  were  walking  down  the  village  street 
side  by  side  in  our  usual  familiar  conversation.  As  I  made 
this  inquiry  he  stopped  short  and,  looking  earnestly  down  at 
me,  turned  and  led  the  way  to  the  back  of  one  of  the  stores — 
his  look,  manner,  and  tone  indicating  that  what  he  was  about 
to  say  was  in  the  nature  of  a  confidential  communication. 

When  we  were  by  ourselves  he  said:  "John,  I  don't  like 
to  brag  about  myself  in  public;  but  I  don't  mind  talking  to 
you,  if  you  won't  tell  it."  I  told  him  I  wouldn't.  In  a 
tone  so  serious  that  I  believed  every  word,  he  said:  "It 
come  about  in  this  way.  When  I  was  a-growin'  up  ther' 
wasn't  nobody  in  Honey  -  Comb  could  lift  as  big  a  load 
as  me.  One  day  a  lot  of  us  fellers  was  a-standin*  in  front 
of  Rickett's  store  when  a  feller  drove  up  with  a  bushel 
bag  plum  full  o'  buckshot.  He  said  he'd  bet  a  dollar  I 
couldn't  shoulder  the  bag,  and  I  took  him  up.  It  wasn't 
no  trouble  for  me  to  shoulder  a  bushel  o'  shot,  but,  as  bad 
luck  would  have  it,  my  left  foot  was  a-restin'  on  a  rock  and 
couldn't  sink  into  the  ground  as  the  other  one  did,  and  the 
heavy  weight  drove  that  hip-bone  half  a  foot  up  into  my 
body,  and  it's  stayed  thar  ever  sence."  Before  I  could  tell 
him  how  sorry  I  was  that  the  rock  happened  to  be  under 
his  foot,  he  forestalled  the  expression  of  sympathy  which 
he  saw  coming  by  adding:  "After  all,  son,  it  ain't  so  power- 
ful bad  as  a  feller  might  think,  specially  in  turnin'  over 
ground  with  a  mold-board  plow.  I  just  keep  my  long  foot 
down  in  the  furrer  and  the  short  one  up  on  the  land,  and 
it  ain't  half  so  tirin'  as  bein'  in  Marshall  County  one  second 
and  up  in  High  Jackson  the  next." 

133 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

In  later  years,  after  the  dawn  of  his  poHtical  career,  he 
turned  this  seeming  misfortune  to  his  further  advantage, 
for,  as  he  said,  it  gave  him  a  chance  to  meet  all  classes  of 
people  on  their  own  level.  "When  I'm  a-talkin'  to  the  peo- 
ple in  'The  Gap'  or  over  in  Honey-Comb,  I  git  down 
among  'em  on  my  short  leg,  familiar  like;  but  when  I'm 
up  here  in  town  with  the  upper  ten,  like  your  pap,  I  rise 
up  on  my  other  foot,  and  thar  I  am." 

In  those  earlier  days,  before  civilization  moved  into  Mar- 
shall, there  were  no  cattle  laws,  and  at  times  not  many  of 
any  other  kind  except  those  which  the  rifle  and  the  bowie- 
knife  enforced.  Everybody's  hogs  ran  loose  and  oftentimes 
strayed  away  into  the  woods  and  became  wild.  More  than 
once  in  my  hunting  expeditions  I  have  had  to  climb  a  tree 
or  retire  precipitately  before  the  onslaught  of  a  savage  sow 
on  guard  over  her  litter.  When  the  mast  in  the  forests 
was  scarce  these  omnivera  would  play  havoc  with  the  corn- 
fields, gardens,  and  orchards  of  the  settlers,  and  great  care 
was  necessary  to  build  tight  or  close  fences.  Jim  said: 
"John  Kennedy's  razorbacks  was  so  poor  and  thin  they 
laughed  at  fences  and  palings  and  went  through  them  as 
if  they  wasn't  there.  Even  tying  knots  in  their  tails  couldn't 
stop  'em.  Howsomever,"  he  added,  "old  Ben  Swords  got 
the  best  of  'em.  He  went  up  on  the  side  o'  the  mountain 
whar  the  chestnut-trees  growed  twistin',  and  split  rails 
enough  to  fence  in  his  peach-orchard.  Well,  John,  you'd  'a' 
died  laughin*  to  'a'  seen  how  foolish  them  shotes  looked 
when  they  struck  them  cork-screw  rails,  and  went  in  and 
come  out  on  the  same  side." 

He  furthermore  assured  me  that  down  in  Parch  Corn 
Cove  a  friend  of  his  raised  so  many  hogs  he  couldn't  take 
time  to  mark  them  with  "a  hole  in  the  left  ear  and  an  under- 

134 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

bit  in  the  right,"  so  he  changed  his  registration  to  a  "smooth 
crop  for  both  ears,  and  mowed  'em  off  with  a  scythe-blade." 

Jim  Swiverly  was  not  the  only  man  in  politics  in  Mar- 
shall County.  At  one  time  or  another  about  everybody  I 
knew  who  wore  breeches  was  running  for  something,  and 
with  some  of  our  people  this  was  a  continuous  performance. 
I  remember  one  man  well  along  in  years  when  I  was  just 
getting  big  enough  to  go  with  my  father  to  the  barbecues 
and  musters  and  other  large  gatherings  held  after  the  crops 
were  "laid  by,"  who  at  every  convention  in  the  absence  of 
any  one  else  to  present  his  name  would  mount  the  stump 
when  it  was  possible  to  get  it  before  another  candidate 
pre-empted  it  and  announce  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
governor.  He  did  this  so  often  that  everybody  knew  him 
by  the  nickname  of  "Governor  Hutton." 

An  opportunity  such  as  this  could  not  escape  the  observa- 
tion of  Jim  Swiverly,  and  there  went  the  rounds  the  story 
that  after  repeated  failures  the  candidate  determined  upon 
smcide.  As  Jim  stated  the  facts:  "The  Governor  wasn't 
a-goin'  t'  have  no  flash  in  the  pan  in  his  case;  so  he  bought 
him  an  inch  rope,  a  big  dose  o'  arsenic,  a  quart  o'  turpentine, 
and  a  box  o'  red-headed  matches,  loaded  his  old  Derringer 
so  full  the  bullet  stuck  half  out  of  the  muzzle,  and  then,  to 
make  things  shore,  he  got  in  a  skiff  and  paddled  out  in  the 
river,  under  a  leanin'  wilier,  to  hang  himself.  He  tied  the 
rope  'round  the  tree,  slipped  the  noose  over  his  head,  said 
his  prayers,  swallowed  the  pizen,  poured  the  turpentine  over 
his  clothes,  struck  a  match  and  set  himself  on  fire,  cocked 
his  Derringer  quick,  stuck  the  muzzle  agin  the  side  of  his 
head,  kicked  the  boat  out  from  under  him,  and  blazed  away. 
Well,  by  doggie,  his  head  was  that  hard  the  bullet  glanced 
off  and  cut  the  rope  in  two,  and  Gov,  he  drapped  inter  the 

135 


WITH    SABkE    AND    SCALPEL 

water,  which  put  out  the  blaze  and  strangled  him  till  he 
coughed  and  throwed  up  the  arsenic,  and — would  you  be- 
lieve it? — the  river  was  so  shaller  he  couldn't  drown,  and 
he  waded  to  the  bank  plum  disgusted,  shook  himself  like 
a  wet  dog,  and  swore  '  By ,  he'd  be  a  candidate  for  life !' " 

More  than  once  I've  listened  to  the  story  of  the  "Liars' 
Tournament,"  held  around  the  red-hot  stove  in  Kinzler's 
grocery  in  Christmas  week  when  "Tom  and  Jerry"  and 
"egg-nog"  were  half-price  to  everybody,  and  free  to  all  ac- 
cepted entries.  It  was  on  such  occasions  that  James  Swiver- 
ly,  self-appointed  master  of  ceremonies,  autocrat,  and  um- 
pire, rose  on  his  long  leg  to  his  greatest  height.  I  can  hear 
him  now  making  the  opening  address  to  the  crowd  of  eager 
listeners,  seated  and  standing  about  the  warm  fire,  all 
seemingly  unmindful  of  the  stifling  air  which  was  only 
spasmodically  relieved  when  an  inrush  of  cold  wind  an- 
nounced another  accession  to  the  throng. 

"Feller-citizens:  This  meetin'  is  called  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion as  to  who's  the  biggest  liar  in  Marshall  County.  It's 
a  momentous  question.  Everybody  knows  it's  as  full  o* 
liars  as  a  watermillion  is  o'  meat.  Some  of  us  is  born  liars 
and  can't  help  it;  some  of  us  learned  it  young,  and  has 
stuck  close  to  it  for  a  livin' ;  and  some  few,  natterally  truth- 
ful, have  bin  obliged  to  lie  to  save  'emselves  from  drowning 
and  taxation.  I've  bin  assessor  five  years,  and  I  know  what 
I'm  talkin'  about.  Thar's  a  power  o'  candidates  for  the  fust 
prize,  and  it  ain't  bin  no  easy  job  to  thin  out  the  rows  to  a 
good  stand.  Fur  be  it  from  me  to  intentionally  hurt  any 
feller's  feelin's,  but  after  prayerful  consideration  thar's  jest 
three  that's  stayed  in  for  the  last  heat.  Them's  Ben  Weeks, 
Jack  Holder,  and  Ezekiel  Burgess.  We'll  hear  first  from 
Mr.  Weeks." 

136 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Ben  arose  and  with  modest  mien  faced  the  stove  and  the 
half-encircHng  throng,  and  spoke  as  convincingly  as  his 
monotonous  low  drawl  would  permit: 

"Boys,  you  know  thar's  allers  bin  feelin'  betwixt  Parch 
Corn  and  the  settlers  over  in  Honey-Comb  Cove,  'specially 
in  the  matter  of  watermillions.  As  it  was  me  that  come  out 
ahead  in  the  raisin'  contest,  it  got  spread  over  the  'North 
Side'  that  what  I  said  about  it  was  made  outen  whole 
cloth.  Now,  thar  is  liars  in  this  county,  as  the  sheriff  says, 
and  thar  ain't  as  many  of  'em  down  in  Honey- Comb  as 
thar  used  to  be  before  he  moved  up  to  the  county-seat,  but 
thar's  enough  yit  for  a  farmin'  community.  I'm  a  forty- 
gallon  Baptist  and  the  father  of  sixteen  childen,  all  bap- 
tized exceptin'  the  last  set  o'  twins,  and  they'll  be  put  under 
when  the  circuit-rider  comes  around,  and  what  I'm  a-goin' 
to-tell  you  is  the  plum  truth,  and  if  any  man  disputes  it 
thar'll  be  a  vote  missin'  in  his  beat  at  the  next  election. 

"When  Kernal  Cobb  was  a-runnin'  for  Congress  and 
was  around  shaking  hands — and  I  tell  you  he  was  so  per- 
tickerler  not  to  slight  anybody  that  he'd  wake  the  babies 
up  in  their  cradles  to  git  a  chance  to  tell  their  mammies 
how  purty  they  was — he  tole  me  he  had  my  name  down  at 
Washington  for  a  package  o'  garden  seeds.  Shore  enough, 
next  spring  they  come  along,  and  among  'em  was  one  big, 
fat-lookin'  watermillion  seed.  He  sent  word  that  it  was  a 
new  kind,  and  powerful  sca'ce,  and  cost  the  gov'mint  five 
dollars  a  seed,  and  I  must  be  very  pertickerler  to  plant  it 
whar  the  ground  was  rich  and  give  it  plenty  of  water  and 
lots  of  room.  Well,  I  fenced  in  a  half-acre  by  the  spring 
branch,  'riched  the  bed,  and  planted  that  seed.  It  come 
up  next  day,  run  out  just  one  shoot,  and  on  the  end  o'  that 
thar  come  a  great  big  yaller  blossom.  And  now,  gentle- 
10  137 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

men,  comes  the  queer  part  of  what  I'm  a-telhn'  you.  In- 
stead o'  waitin'  a  week  to  shed  that  blossom,  that  darned 
watermillion  growed  so  fast  it  pushed  it  off  in  one  night,  and 
from  that  time  on  tell  frost  it  was  all  we  could  do  to  keep 
outen  the  way  and  not  git  run  over.  It  growed  so  fast  you 
could  see  its  shadder  gittin'  bigger  every  minute  of  the  day. 
When  it  was  three  weeks  old  it  tlirowed  the  fence  down, 
dammed  up  the  spring  branch,  and  made  for  the  house,  and 
all  hell  couldn't  stop  it.  YiTien  the  logs  begun  to  keel  over 
and  the  roof  was  a-fallin'  in,  me  and  my  wife  and  childen 
cut  a  door  in  one  end  of  the  watermillion  and  moved  in,  and 
lived  on  it  tell  a  week  before  frost,  when  we  met  a  drove  o' 
hogs  eatin'  thar  way  through  from  the  other  side;  and  we 
had  to  move  out  and  go  and  live  with  my  wife's  pap,  whar 
we've  been  a-livin'  ever  sence." 

When  the  applause  died  out  and  Ben  had  resumed  his 
seat  Jim  said  he  would  reserve  "all  p'inted  comments  until 
the  other  contestants  had  spoke,"  but  there  was  a  semi- 
maHcious  smile  of  satisfaction,  which  may  have  sprung 
from  Cove  rivalry,  when  he  added,  "If  all  of  what  we've 
jest  heard  was  as  true  as  the  last  part  of  it,  it  ought  to  be  a 
chapter  in  the  Bible."  By  the  time  the  laugh  and  the 
mufHed  comments  on  Ben's  relations  to  his  father-in-law's 
corn-crib  had  ceased  Mr.  Jack  Holder  was  on  his  feet. 

"I'm  not  a  church  member,"  he  announced,  "and  as  far 
as  I  know  I  ain't  never  been  reaUy  baptized,  for  my  folks 
was  only  sprinklers;  but  I'm  a  thirty-second  degree  Free- 
mason and  a  full-fledged  EJiow-nothing,  and  I've  got  a 
discharge  paper  from  Gineral  Fremont  and  Kit  Carson, 
certifying  that  what  I  seed  in  Arizony,  when  we  marched 
thro'  thar  on  our  way  to  Calif orny  in  1853,  was  as  true  as 
the  Book  of  Exodus.     When  we  fust  started  out  from  Mis- 

138 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

souri  it  looked  like  we  was  goin'  to  have  nothin'  but  a  long 
walk  and  lots  o'  fun,  but  the  farther  west  we  went  the 
thinner  the  grass  got,  and  when  we  got  over  the  Rockies  it 
give  plum  out.  When  we  hit  the  edge  of  the  desert  every- 
body was  ordered  to  fill  up  with  water  and  to  tote  all  he 
coiild,  for  Kit  said  thar  wasn't  a  drap  to  be  had  for  one 
hundred  miles  of  the  hot  and  petrified  forests  we  marched 
through.  Talk  about  your  pillar  of  cloud  by  day!  Why, 
gentlemen,  the  childen  of  Israel  never  raised  such  a  dust 
as  we  did  a-windin'  in  and  out  among  them  rock  trees. 
Thar  they  stood,  just  like  they  wuz  before  they  turned  to 
stone,  and  they  must  have  turned  powerful  quick  when  the 
change  come,  for  on  every  petrified  tree  thar  wuz  petrified 
limbs,  and  them  limbs  wuz  thick  with  petrified  leaves  which 
never  throwed  a  shade,  and  the  most  surprisin'  thing  of  it 
all  wuz  that  a-settin'  all  over  them  limbs  was  thousands 
of  petrified  birds,  and  every  darn  bird  was  a-singin'  a  petri- 
fied song." 

Amid  a  considerable  clapping  of  hands  and  a  scattering 
fire  at  the  square  sawdust  -  spitbox  near  the  stove,  Jack 
found  his  seat,  while  Jim  remarked: 

"The  Good  Book  tells  us  that  when  Lot  was  a-rimnin'  from 
Sodom  after  the  fire  broke  out,  his  old  woman  looked  back 
and  was  turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt.  As  Judge  Shorter  said 
in  his  charge  to  the  jury  in  the  case  of  Feemster  agin 
McShane,  T  don't  intend  to  draw  any  invidious  distinctions,* 
but  in  my  opinion  it  would  'a'  bin  a  great  blessin'  to  this 
country  if  'Truthful  Jack'  had  looked  back  and  been  turned 
into  a  standin'  committee  of  one  and  had  stayed  out  in 
Arizony  a-listenin'  to  petrified  birds  a-singin'  petrified  songs 
till  Gabriel  bio  wed  a  petrified  blast  on  his  petrified  horn." 

There  was  nothing  of  mock  modesty  or  assumed  humility 

139 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  the  mien  or  tone  of  Ezekiel  Burgess,  a  veteran  of  the 
Mexican  War,  as  he  arose  and  with  miHtary  precision  made 
two  steps  forward  to  the  open  place  in  the  circle,  took  off 
his  hat,  saluted  the  sheriff,  and  then,  looking  squarely  into 
the  face  of  a  large  chromo  of  the  Father  of  his  Country 
which  adorned  the  wall  of  the  saloon,  said: 

"Gentlemen,  like  George  Washington,  I  have  served  my 
country.  When  the  call  for  volunteers  was  made  to  repel 
the  Mexican  invaders  of  the  Lone  Star  State  I  offered  my 
humble  services,  and  they  were  accepted.  When  we  reached 
the  Rio  Grande  General  Taylor  rode  up  to  me  and  said, 
'Zeke'  (he  always  called  me  that  when  we  were  alone)  'get 
on  your  horse  and  swim  across  and  make  a  scout,  and  come 
back  and  tell  me  how  many  of  Santa  Anna's  men  there  are 
over  there.'  I  found  a  low  place  in  the  banks  and  got 
across,  and  went  ten  or  twenty  miles  and  never  saw  a  sign 
of  their  men,  until  just  as  I  was  riding  around  a  bunch  of 
chaparral  two  hundred  Mexican  lancers  dashed  out  and 
came  yelling  right  at  me.  There  was  nothing  left  for  me 
to  do  but  to  break  for  the  river  at  the  nearest  [point  and 
trust  to  luck  in  hitting  a  low  place.  As  I  came  up  to  it  at 
full  speed  I  saw,  to  my  horror,  that  I  had  struck  a  high  bluff 
where  it  was  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  straight  down 
to  the  water.  By  this  time  the  lancers  were  so  close  and 
coming  so  fast  I  could  almost  feel  their  sharp  points  between 
my  shoulder-blades.  Now,  gentlemen,  there  are  times  in  a 
man's  life  when  he  who  hesitates  is  lost;  and,  as  I  realized 
it  was  sure  death  to  stop  or  turn,  I  shut  my  eyes,  said  my 
prayers,  stuck  my  spurs  into  my  faithful  horse's  sides, 
and  over  the  precipice  I  went — horse  and  all — a  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  down  into  the  Rio  Grande." 

As  Ezekiel  lowered  his  eyes  from  the  calm  face  of  George 

140 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Washington,  repeated  his  salute,  and  started  to  resume  his 
seat,  the  sheriff  said,  "Wih  Ezekiel  Burgess  inform  this 
crowd  how  long  it  took  him  to  come  up  after  that  dive?" 
The  veteran,  unable  to  conceal  his  contempt  at  such  a  ques- 
tion, turned  only  a  moment  to  reply:  "Come  up,  Mr. 
Sheriff?  Come  up?  I  never  did  come  up;  I'm  there  yet!" 
And  as  he  ceased,  amid  applause  which  shook  the  saloon 
to  its  underpinning,  the  chromo  of  George  Washington  fell 
with  a  crash  to  the  floor. 

Startled  by  the  outburst  of  applause  at  the  way  Ezekiel 
had  downed  the  sheriff,  and  before  the  vote  could  be  taken, 
Ben  Weeks  jumped  to  his  feet  and,  with  eyes  turned  heaven- 
ward and  both  hands  raised  in  the  same  general  direction, 
in  a  pleading  tone  shouted:  "Boys,  like  Moses  of  old,  I'm 
a-holdin'  my  hands  up  to  ask  fer  a  word  more.  If  thar  ever 
wuz  a  time  when  friendship  and  jestice  could  jine  hands  to 
help  Ben  Weeks,  it's  right  now.  My  repertation  down  in 
Parch  Corn  Cove  is  at  stake.  Up  to  now  over  on  our  side 
of  the  river  no  man  has  ever  worked  with  as  long  a  pole  as 
me  or  knocked  down  as  many  high  persimmons.  If  this 
vote  is  agin  me,  the  chances  is  ten  to  one  that  my  wife's 
pap  '11  turn  us  out,  and  I'll  have  to  go  back  to  work  to 
make  my  own  livin'.  While  I  scorn  the  idee  of  usin'  un- 
due influence,  I  want  to  tell  yer  that  I  saved  eight  bushels 
of  them  watermillion  seeds,  and  they're  soon  to  be  distributed 
in  Marshall  County,  free,  gratis,  fer  nuthin'." 

As  Ben  seated  himself  the  sheriff  arose  and  remarked 
that,  as  Mr.  Weeks  had  added  "a  codicil  to  his  will,"  if  the 
other  candidates  desired  to  speak  any  "last  words"  they 
now  had  the  chance.  Without  rising  or  even  uncrossing 
his  legs,  and  with  a  voice  of  such  subdued  tone  that  it  gave 
the  impression  of  despair,  Mr.  Jack  Holder  said,  "I  pass." 

141 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Not  so  with  Colonel  Ezekiel  Burgess,  who  stood  erect  and 
with  a  gesture  which  included  the  whole  audience  in  its 
sweep  said:  "Mr.  Sheriff,  to  draw  one  card  to  four  aces 
would  be  an  act  of  deception  to  which  a  survivor  of  the 
Mexican  War  could  never  stoop.     Gentlemen,  I  stand." 

And  Ezekiel  Burgess  passed  into  history  as  the  biggest 
liar  the  Cherokee  country  of  northern  Alabama  had  ever 
produced. 

When  the  war  came  on,  in  1861,  Jim  had  grown  tired  of 
being  sheriff,  and  ran  for  the  legislature,  and  was  elected, 
of  course,  for  nobody  could  beat  him.  By  the  spring  of 
1862  the  Confederate  Army  of  the  West  had  been  driven 
back  to  the  south  side  of  the  Tennessee  River,  which  then 
became  the  dividing-line  of  the  opposing  hosts.  Gunters- 
ville,  my  native  town,  was  situated  about  a  mile  from  the 
southerly  bank  of  this  noble  stream.  When  Huntsville, 
some  forty  miles  to  the  north,  became  the  headquarters  of 
the  Union  forces,  communication  for  us  with  the  outside 
world  practically  ceased.  The  steamboats  could  no  longer 
run,  the  stages  and  mail  -  riders  were  discontinued  or  be- 
came so  unreliable  that  we  could  learn  little  of  what  was 
going  on,  and  war  news  was  eagerly  desired.  In  this 
emergency  my  friend  again  rose  to  the  occasion  and  estab- 
lished what  he  termed  "the  grape-vine  telegraph."  He 
said,  "The  Yankees  may  burn  our  steamboats,  tear  up  our 
railroads,  cut  our  telegraph  wires,  and  stop  the  mails,  but 
there  ain't  enough  of  'em  left  to  strip  the  grape-vines  from 
the  trees  along  the  river-banks,  and  as  long  as  they  last 
there'll  be  plenty  o'  news."  He  justified  himself  by  saying: 
"Whether  it's  so  or  not  don't  make  no  difference;  for  the 
people  is  starving  for  news,  and  one  kind  is  jest  as  good  as 
another."     Over  those  wireless  lines,  long  before  Marconi 

142 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

was  born,  came  volumes  of  the  most  impossible  happen- 
ings, as  interpreted  by  the  fertile  brain  of  our  proprietor 
and  sole  operator;  and  by  the  few  at  home,  mostly  old 
men  or  cripples  and  wounded  soldiers  on  furlough  who 
gathered  daily  at  the  post-office,  where  the  operator  made 
his  headquarters,  they  were  heard  with  a  smile,  for  no  bad 
news  ever  came  that  way.  The  Confederacy  was  always 
victorious  and  its  diplomacy  invariably  prevailed. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  Mason-Slidell  controversy  the  ir- 
repressible operator  reported  that  Mason  was  coming  back 
with  the  whole  British  navy  to  raise  the  blockade,  while 
Slidell  and  the  Emperor  Napoleon  at  the  head  of  a  million 
French  soldiers  were  marching  by  way  of  Moscow  and  Bering 
Strait  to  take  the  United  States  in  the  rear.  Before  the 
cyclone  of  active  hostilities  struck  my  native  village  and 
wiped  it  out  with  fire  and  sword  I  had  gone  to  the  wars, 
and  for  three  years  I  lost  sight  of  my  old  friend.  When  I 
saw  him  again  during  the  period  of  reconstruction  the  scep- 
ter had  departed  from  Judah  and  the  ruler's  staff  from 
between  his  feet.  Old  in  body,  broken  in  health  and 
fortune,  he  was  Hving  the  song  of  "Tarn  o'  Shanter" — 

Inspiring  bold  John  Barleycorn, 

What  sorrows  thou  canst  make  us  scorn! 

My  last  recollection  of  him  is  the  ludicrous  story  told  in 
one  of  his  moments  of  sobriety,  or  semi-sobriety,  of  a  panic 
and  stampede  in  which  he  took  an  active  part  upon  the 
occasion  of  the  sudden  and  unexpected  visit  of  a  company 
of  Ohio  cavalry  to  our  village. 

The  Federal  commander  at  Huntsville  had  been  informed 
that  the  steamer  Paint  Rock  was  hid  away  in  a  creek  which 
emptied  into  the  Tennessee  near  Guntersville,  and  he  deter- 

143 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

mined  upon  its  capture.  Guided  by  a  native  scout,  and 
crossing  the  river  near  Hunts ville,  an  all-night  ride  over 
the  mountains  brought  the  Union  cavalry  upon  the  unsus- 
pecting villagers  about  nine  o'clock  on  an  April  morning. 
At  this  period  there  were  no  soldiers  in  town,  and  but  few 
men,  and  these  were  non-combatants,  either  too  old  for 
military  duty  or  exempt  by  reason  of  physical  defects.  When 
the  advance-guard  of  the  Federals  reached  the  head  of  the 
main  street  a  dozen  troopers  dashed  at  full  speed  down  this 
highway  through  the  village,  paying  no  heed  to  anybody, 
their  object  being  to  seize  the  steamboat  at  the  river-landing 
beyond.  All  unconscious  of  what  was  about  to  occur,  the 
sheriff,  the  village  doctor,  and  a  wealthy,  pompous,  and  very 
portly  planter,  who  had  seen  some  service  in  the  Mexican 
War,  were  sitting  on  the  open  platform  in  front  of  the  doc- 
tor's drug-store,  which  served  also  as  the  post-office  and 
headquarters  of  "the  grape-vine  telegraph."  Trusting  to 
memory  in  the  repetition  of  a  narrative  tinged,  no  doubt, 
with  the  exaggeration  which  a  ludicrous  incident  invites, 
and  may,  on  occasion,  justify,  this  was  the  story: 

"I've  been  skeered  lots  o'  times  in  my  life,  and  bad 
skeered,  too,  but  I  never  come  so  near  being  paralyzed  all 
over  at  once  as  I  was  the  mornin'  them  dod-blasted  Yankees 
dashed  'round  the  corner  and  come  a-tearin'  down  Main 
Street  so  fast  and  so  sudden-like  that  before  a  feller  could 
say  Jack  Robberson  they  was  right  on  top  of  him. 

"We  all  knowed  they  was  over  in  Huntsville,  but  nobody 
ever  dreamt  they'd  cross  the  river  below  and  come  on  us  in 
the  back  way.  Howsomever,  that's  jest  what  they  done, 
and  at  the  wrong  time,  too,  for  Kernel  Jim  was  right  in  the 
middle  of  one  of  his  big  war  talks.  I  disremember  whar  he 
left  off,  for  he  was  a-facin'  up  the  street,  and  me  and  Doc 

144 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

was  a-lookin'  the  other  way,  and  he  seed  the  Yankees  fust. 
You  see,  Kernel  Jim  was  askin'  if  thar  was  any  news,  and 
I  says  nothin'  more  than  Lee  and  Stonewall  Jackson  had 
whupped  'em  ag'in  and  had  tuk  Washington  City,  and  Jeff 
Davis  was  a-movin'  over  from  Richmond  so  he  could  keep 
closer  to  'em.  With  that  the  Kernel  says:  'That's  the 
only  way  to  end  the  war — whup  'em,  and  keep  on  a-whup- 
pin'  'em,  and  drive  'em  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  drown 
'em,  or  corral  'em  away  up  in  Cannedy,  and  hold  'em  thar 
till  winter-time  comes  on  and  freezes  'em  to  death.  -  Fight 
'em,  just  like  we  fout  the  Mexicans  at  Buny  Visty,  The 
more  them  lancers  charged,  the  firmer  we  stood  our  ground, 
and  when  we  got  'em  a-goin'  we  never  let  'em  stop  long 
enough  to  git  thar  wind,  Thar's  whar  General  Beauregard 
made  the  big  mistake  at  Shiloh.  If  he'd  'a'  kep'  on  another 
hour  he'd  'a'  drove  Grant  into  the  Tennessee.  My  motto 
is  to  keep  on  a-fightin'  'em.  One  Southern  man  can  whup 
five  Yankees  any  day,  and  if  they  ever  try  to  take  our 
town  we'll — '  And  right  here  Kernel  Jim  stopped  a-talkin' 
so  short  off  I  knowed  somethin'  more'n  common  had 
happened. 

"I  was  a-lookin'  straight  at  him,  and  as  he  shut  up  his 
eyes  popped  wide  open,  and  he  riz  and  jumped  over  me  and 
Doc  and  flew  out  o'  sight  into  the  narrer  passageway  be- 
twixt the  drug-store  and  Kinzler's  grocery.  Four  hundred 
pounds  o'  dead  weight  wasn't  interferin'  with  Kernel  Jim's 
quick  action.  As  I  was  a-noticin'  the  way  he  was  behavin' 
I  heard  a  roarin'  sound  like  a  drove  o'  horses  a-runnin' 
away,  and,  turnin'  'round,  thar  was  the  whole  road  blue 
with  Yankees,  and  they  was  right  on  top  of  us.  Talk  about 
being  skeered!  When  I  tried  to  git  up  my  legs  wouldn't 
work,  and  I  slid  off  my  cheer  onto  the  platform  and  rolled 

145 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

into  the  street.  By  this  time  the  Yankees  was  gone,  and 
everybody  else  was  gone  but  me.  Then  my  legs  come  back, 
and  I  run  into  the  alleyway,  and  thar  I  seed  the  comicalest 
sight  I  ever  seed  in  all  my  bom  days.  Skeered  as  I  was,  I 
jest  had  to  laugh,  for  thar,  at  the  back  o'  the  house  where 
the  underpinnin'  had  sagged  down  and  narrowed  the  pass- 
age, was  Kernel  Jim  wedged  in  so  tight  he  couldn't  move 
one  way  or  t'other,  and  Doc  was  jest  a-clearin'  him  with 
one  o'  the  highest  jumps  I  ever  seed. 

"By  this  time  I  was  a-movin'  so  fast  I  couldn't  check  up, 
and  I  riz  on  my  long  leg  and  tried  to  clear  the  Kernel  like 
Doc,  but  I  fell  short,  and  my  knees  hit  him  right  between 
his  shoulder-blades.  Just  as  I  struck  him  he  hollered,  'Oh, 
Lord!  I'm  shot  plum  through  with  a  cannon-ball,'  and  then 
he  went  to  prayin'  same  as  if  he'd  been  a  church-member, 
and  as  I  crawled  betwixt  his  legs  and  cleared  the  openin'  he 
was  still  a-supplicatin'.  By  the  time  I  got  through  Doc  was 
nearly  out  o'  sight,  and  I  hollered  to  him  to  wait  for  me, 
but  the  louder  I  hollered  the  faster  he  went,  and  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  one  thing  I  never  could  'a'  cotched  him.  When  we 
come  to  the  side  o'  the  steep  hill  back  o'  town,  as  good  luck 
would  have  it,  I  struck  the  slant  with  my  short  leg  on  the 
upper  side,  and  then  I  went  by  Doc  like  he  was  a-standin' 
still." 

How  the  Colonel  extricated  himself  from  his  unfortunate 
position  was  not  included  in  the  story  as  it  was  told  to  me. 
It  may  be  that  the  whole  thing  was  evolved  from  the  fertile 
mind  of  the  loquacious  sheriff.  In  any  event,  its  repetition 
furnished  merriment  for  many  a  day  thereafter,  and  no 
doubt  helped  to  lighten  some  of  the  sad  hours  of  that  un- 
happy period. 


XII 

THE  SNAKES  OF  NORTHERN  ALABAMA 

What  I  have  to  say  of  snakes  is  based  entirely  on  per- 
sonal observation  and  experience,  and  not  on  a  scientific 
study  of  these  vertebrates.  Much  that  is  absurd  or  untrue 
or  grossly  exaggerated  has  been  uttered  concerning  snakes, 
and  it  would  seem  as  if  the  human  family,  taking  its  cue 
from  the  Garden  of  Eden  on  serpents,  and  from  Jonah  and 
one  of  the  parables  on  fish,  had  exercised  a  free  license  in 
speaking  of  these  creatures.  In  the  early  settlement  days 
there  were  a  great  many  snakes  of  different  kinds  in  Marshall 
County;  but  now,  owing  to  the  clearing  of  the  land  for 
cultivation  and  the  common  warfare  of  extermination,  they 
are  comparatively  rare  with  the  exception  of  the  water- 
moccasin.  The  snakes  that  run  their  prey  down  and  catch 
it  with  their  teeth,  and  when  necessary  kill  it  by  constriction 
and  crushing,  are  not  venomous,  and  when  fully  grown  are 
comparatively  long  (three  to  six  or  seven  feet) ,  slender,  and 
graceful  in  motion.  Some  of  them  move  with  surprising 
rapidity.  The  "coach- whip,"  a  very  dark-brown,  almost 
black  serpent,  so  called  because  it  looks  as  if  it  were  a  platted 
coach-whip,  I  have  seen  flash  across  the  road  so  quickly 
that  if  the  track  it  left  in  the  dust  or  sand  was  not  there  as 
a  witness  one  might  doubt  the  testimony  of  the  eye.  By 
reason  of  their  alertness  they  are  rarely  killed.  While 
snakes  are  in  general  repulsive,  this  particular  one  may 
almost  be  said  to  be  beautiful.     Their  nests,  or  dens,  were 

147 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

usually  in  the  ground,  in  recesses  or  caverns  left  by  the 
decay  and  disintegration  of  the  long,  large  roots  of  dead 
trees.  When  frightened  they  glide  almost  like  a  flash  of 
lightning  for  their  holes  and  do  not  seem  to  notice  the  pres- 
ence of  any  body  coming  between  them  and  the  refuge  they 
are  seeking.  This  fact  would  seem  to  account  for  the  super- 
stition, especially  among  the  negroes,  that  a  coach- whip 
would  attack  a  man.  Like  all  other  animals,  these  will  al- 
ways run  if  they  see  a  way  to  escape,  and  fight  only  when 
cornered  or  wounded  and  desperate. 

The  rattlesnake  comes  nearer  to  being  indifferent  to  the 
presence  of  man  than  any  other  creature  of  its  kind.  I  have 
seen  coach-whips  fully  six  feet  in  length.  As  they  move  so 
swiftly,  they  are  apt  to  give  the  impression  of  being  much 
longer  than  they  are.  The  blacksnake,  also  a  constric- 
tor, is  quite  common  in  Alabama,  is  long,  graceful,  and 
moves  with  remarkable  swiftness,  leaving  a  track  or 
trail  only  slightly  sinuous.  In  fact,  as  it  propels  itself 
by  the  transverse  movable  scales  across  it^^s  belly,  to 
which  the  abdominal  and  lateral  muscles  are  attached, 
its  progress  is  almost  in  a  straight  line,  as  with  the 
common  earthworm.  This  latter,  however,  elongates 
itself,  fixes  its  anterior  extremity,  and  then  draws  up 
its  rear  portion  in  a  straight  line,  which  the  snake  does 
not.  The  short  or  stubby  and  usually  venomous  snakes 
leave  a  sinuous  or  serpentine  trail,  showing  that  they 
propel  themselves  by  the  use  of  their  large  lateral  muscles 
rather  than  by  the  abdominal  or  transverse  scale  layers. 
I  infer  from  this  that  they  are  nearer  in  evolution  to  the 
vertebrates  with  legs.  These  move  much  slower  than  the 
constrictors.  They  lie  in  wait  for  their  prey,  and  kill  it  by 
striking  with  their  poison-injecting  fangs,  usually  holding 

148 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

on  to  it  until  it  soon  dies  from  the  venom  which  is  rapidly 
absorbed  in  the  blood. 

The  sa3''ing  "Be  ye  wise  as  serpents"  is  not  without  a 
meaning  as  applied  to  some  of  the  snake  tribe,  for  I  have 
often  observed  their  cunning  when  out  for  prey.  I  was 
seated  on  a  log  on  a  hillside  in  an  open,  shady  woodland 
while  hunting.  Hearing  a  rustling  above,  I  turned  to 
see  coming  toward  me  a  black  racer  four  or  five  feet  in 
length,  and  leaping  for  dear  life  about  twenty  feet  ahead 
of  it  was  a  bullfrog  of  good  size.  The  frog  was  clever 
enough  to  leap  in  zigzags,  first  to  right  and  then  to  left; 
and  for  the  first  four  or  five  manoeuvers  of  this  kind  the 
snake  followed  each  turn  of  the  animal  it  was  chasing;  but 
as  the  rapidly  moving  and,  to  me,  extremely  interesting 
picture  arrived  opposite  my  position  I  noticed  that  the 
racer,  instead  of  turning  to  the  right,  glided  the  other  way, 
and  as  the  frog,  reversing  in  his  course,  neared  the  ground 
he  fell  into  the  open  jaws  of  his  pursuer,  who  had  actually 
caught  him  "on  the  fly."  Sitting  still  unobserved,  I  noted 
that  without  constriction  the  snake  proceeded  to  swallow 
his  victim.  The  frog  was  at  least  two  or  three  times  as 
large  as  the  head  and  neck  of  the  snake,  and  I  marveled 
at  the  way  the  mouth  of  the  latter  stretched  as  the  morsel 
began  to  disappear  down  its  throat.  It  was  probably  half 
an  hour  before  it  was  well  out  of  sight. 

I  once  killed  a  big  blacksnake,  and  in  order  to  discover 
the  cause  of  a  large  lump  or  swelling  in  its  abdomen  I  cut 
it  open  to  find  an  undigested  bird,  feathers  and  all.  It  was 
a  flicker,  or  yellowhammer,  a  beautiful  bird  of  the  South 
about  the  size  of  a  Florida  quail.  The  largest  diameter  of 
the  bird  was  at  least  five  times  greater  than  the  neck  of 
the  snake  as  it  lay  dead. 

149 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  blacksnake  and  the  chicken-snake,  constrictors  of 
near  kin  to  the  racer  and  the  coach-whip,  but  not  nearly 
so  swift,  are  tree-chmbers.  I  have  seen  them  high  above 
the  ground,  stretched  full  length  on  top  of  a  long  limb,  as 
motionless  and  fixed  as  the  branch  upon  which  they  were 
lying  in  wait  for  some  unwary  bird  to  alight  near  enough 
to  be  snapped  by  the  lightning-like  stroke  of  the  head  and 
anterior  portion  of  the  body.  In  climbing  they  take  hold 
by  winding  around  the  tnink  of  the  tree.  I  recall  a  fright 
I  experienced  on  one  occasion  when  I  was  riding  at  a  canter 
along  a  narrow  path  with  a  worm-fence  on  one  side  and  a 
deep  gulley  on  the  other.  Just  as  I  was  leaning  forward 
on  my  horse's  neck  to  pass  imder  the  limb  of  a  tree  which 
stretched  directly  across  the  trail,  when  my  face  was  not  a 
foot  away,  I  saw  stretched  along  the  branch  a  huge  chicken- 
snake  five  or  six  feet  in  length.  It  was  too  late  to  check 
my  horse,  so  I  ducked  my  head  to  pass  under.  The  snake, 
more  frightened  than  I,  let  loose  and  fell,  striking  across  the 
horse's  back  just  behind  the  saddle.  As  soon  as  he  hit 
the  ground  he  gUded  through  the  fence  and  was  gone.  I 
knew  this  one  was  not  poisonous,  and  I  was  in  no  danger; 
but,  although  I  have  been  accustomed  to  seeing  them  from 
childhood,  the  sight  of  a  snake,  even  the  picture  of  one,  gives 
me  a  shudder. 

Chicken-snakes  infest  bams  and  outhouses,  and  live  on 
tiny  chickens,  mice,  and  eggs.  A  large  one  will  swallow 
a  half-dozen  hen's  eggs  without  breaking  the  shells,  which 
are  later  dissolved  by  the  gastric  juice.  The  only  other 
snake  I  have  seen  in  the  trees  was  a  small,  slender  creature 
about  two  feet  in  length  and  as  green  as  the  leaves.  I  do 
not  know  whether  or  not  it  is  venomous,  and  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that,  like  the  garter-snake,  it  lives  largely  on  in- 

150 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

sects.  The  garter-snake  is  very  common,  and  is  not  only 
harmless,  but  useful  in  that  it  destroys  insects.  I  have  seen 
people  pick  them  up  by  grasping  them  in  the  middle,  and 
the  wriggling  captive  woiild  not  even  try  to  bite  the  hand 
that  held  it.  Two  of  the  largest  of  the  harmless  variety  I 
ever  saw  were  blacksnakes.  They  were  as  large  around  in 
the  middle  as  my  arm  and  fully  six  feet  in  length.  My 
father  and  I  were  having  a  canoe  hewn  out  of  the  trunk  of 
a  large  poplar-tree  in  the  Tennessee  bottom.  Within  fifty 
yards  this  pair  of  serpents  had  their  den  in  the  roots  of  a  great 
oak,  and  every  afternoon  near  sundown  they  would  appear 
and  chase  each  other  in  a  regular  frolic,  like  two  children 
playing  hide-and-seek.  No  one  had  a  thought  of  trying 
to  kill  them,  as  they  were  far  from  a  habitation. 

Among  the  venomous  serpents  of  northern  Alabama 
are  the  Elaps  russelli,  or  king -snake;  the  rattlesnake 
{Crotalus  adamanteus,  or  diamond-back) ;  the  copperhead 
{Trigonocephalus  contortrix,  or  cottonmouth) ;  the  inocca- 
sin — two  varieties,  the  highland  and  the  water  moccasin 
(Toxicophis) ;  and  the  spreading-adder,  of  the  order  Viper  a 
herus.  The  elaps  is  quite  rare.  I  have  seen  less  than  half 
a  dozen.  They  are  small,  about  two  feet  long,  slender, 
graceful,  slow  and  deHberate  in  movement,  and  seemingly 
fearless.  Their  markings  are  unique,  having  from  neck  to 
tail  alternating  black  and  golden  rings,  while  the  head  is 
black  with  a  golden  arch  over  each  eye.  While  driving 
along  a  lonely  mountain  road  on  a  very  bright  and  hot 
summer  day  I  saw  one  of  this  variety  gliding  down  the 
rather  steep  bank  on  the  upper  side  of  the  highway.  I 
stopped  the  horse,  and,  seemingly  unmindful  of  danger  or 
observation,  the  little  creature  came  into  the  road,  passed 
between  the  front  and  rear  wheels  of  one  side,  and  v/ent 

151 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

between  the  two  hind  wheels,  and  thence  into  the  brush- 
wood on  the  other  side.  Several  times,  as  it  was  directly 
beneath  the  buggy,  it  shot  its  forked  tongue  out  of  its 
mouth.     It  was  a  very  interesting  experience. 

At  that  time  I  had  no  idea  of  how  very  poisonous  this 
seemingly  innocent  fellow  was,  but  a  mountaineer  whom  I 
knew  very  well  told  me  it  was  a  king-snake,  and  that  he 
had  seen  one  kill  a  rattlesnake  several  times  larger  than  it- 
self. I  took  this  statement  cum  grano,  as  I  always  take  fish 
or  snake  reports,  although  it  may  have  been  true.  Later 
I  secured  one  of  these  reptiles  alive,  brought  it  to  New 
York,  and  presented  it  to  Mr.  Conkling,  then  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  Central  Park  Zoo.  As  soon  as  he  saw  it  he 
pronounced  it  the  Elaps  russclli,  adding  that  it  was  the 
most  deadly  snake  on  the  continent.  It  was  on  exhibition 
in  New  York  for  some  time. 

The  most  horrible  snake  of  all  is  the  highland  moccasin, 
a  short,  thick,  stubby-tailed,  and  hammer-headed  monster. 
It  is  said  to  be,  and  I  believe  is,  very  venomous.  It  is  slug- 
gish in  its  wriggling  way  of  moving,  and,  as  it  inhabits  lone- 
ly and  unfrequented  mountainsides,  usually  under  cliffs  and 
boulders,  where  it  can  readily  find  a  fissure  for  refuge,  it  is 
rarely  seen.  I  had  an  instructive  experience  with  one  of 
these,  and  I  recall  it  vividly  because  on  the  same  day  I  was 
stung  in  the  palm  of  the  hand  by  a  scorpion.  These  latter 
live  under  rocks  and  beneath  the  loosened  bark  of  fallen 
trees.  While  making  a  survey  I  planted  the  instrument 
near  the  trunk  of  a  pine  which  had  been  blown  down,  and 
as  I  was  leaning  over  to  sight  the  flagman  I  displaced  a 
piece  of  the  loose  bark  with  the  flat  of  my  right  hand. 
Feeling  a  sharp  sting,  I  lifted  the  hand  and  saw  the  scorpion, 
about   two  inches  long,   hanging  by  his  tail,   the  stinger 

152 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

fastened  in  my  palm  holding  it  captive.  Shaking  the  vicious 
creature  loose,  I  sucked  the  poison  out  at  once,  and  thought 
no  more  of  it.  Clambering  over  the  bluff  and  well  down 
the  crest  of  the  mountain,  peering  over  a  large  boulder  to 
find  a  place  to  set  the  transit,  I  saw  a  highland  moccasin. 
It  did  not  budge,  and  was  probably  sound  asleep.  While 
not  over  a  foot  and  a  half  in  length,  it  seemed  fully  three 
inches  in  diameter  in  the  middle  of  its  body.  Picking  up 
a  large  stone,  I  leaned  over  and  dropped  it  directly  on  the 
snake,  killing  it.  Cutting  the  body  open,  I  made  the  (to 
me)  surprising  discovery  that  it  was  viviparous  —  I  had 
thought  all  snakes  were  oviparous  like  the  chicken-snake, 
and  racer,  and  coach-whip. 

The  water-moccasins  are  very  numerous,  and,  as  they 
live  in  or  near  the  creeks  and  ponds,  in  which  they  dive  out 
of  sight  when  approached,  their  extermination  will  be  long 
deferred.  This  snake  is  colored  on  the  back  and  sides  a 
muddy  brown,  not  quite  a  black  shade,  while  the  belly  is 
a  light  salmon.  The  largest  I  have  seen  were  from  three  to 
four  feet  long,  but  these  are  exceptional.  If  a  drift  of  logs 
or  brush  is  cautiously  approached  on  a  hot,  clear  day,  from 
one  to  a  dozen  or  more  may  be  seen,  seemingly  asleep  and 
coiled,  or  half  coiled,  evidently  enjoying  the  warmth.  Dis- 
turbed, they  slide  below  the  surface  of  the  water,  where 
they  seem  to  be  able  to  remain  indefinitely. 

The  spreading-adder  has  a  short  and  not  very  thick  body, 
and  is  dark  in  color.  When  teased  it  will  flatten  its  body 
until  it  looks  not  unlike  thick  webbing,  and  as  it  raises  its 
head  and  the  fore  part  of  its  body  to  strike  it  emits  a  warn- 
ing, short  hiss.  Their  habitat  is  in  the  uplands,  and  prefer- 
ably among  heaps  of  loose  stones. 

I  have  saved  the  rattlesnake  for  the  last  out  of  respect 
11  153 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  this  underrated  animal.  They  are  admittedly  very  dan- 
gerous when  nearly  approached,  but  they  will  not  strike 
unless  they  are  trod  on  or  attacked,  and  unless  asleep  when 
approached  they  will  always  warn  you  of  danger  by  sound- 
ing the  rattle  with  which  nature  has  adorned  their  tails. 
Moreover,  they  are  less  afraid  of  man  than  any  other  living 
creature.  On  a  hot  August  day  while  on  a  long  horseback- 
ride,  being  saddle-weary,  I  alighted,  threw  the  reins  over 
the  saddle,  and  walked  ahead,  my  well-trained  horse  fol- 
lowing. The  road  was  narrow,  with  dense  undergrowth 
on  either  side.  Looking  ahead  some  fifty  yards,  I  saw  a 
large  rattlesnake  glide  slowly  into  the  roadway.  When  he 
observed  me  he  stopped  as  his  head  was  over  one  wagon 
track  and  his  tail  over  the  other,  and  head  and  tail  were 
raised  three  or  four  inches.  As  I  came  up  within  a  few  feet, 
instead  of  going  on  and  escaping,  as  he  could  have  done,  he 
rattled  his  warning  note;  and  I  could  see  the  tail  in  rapid, 
short  vibration.  As  my  horse  now  came  up  and  saw  and 
smelt  his  natural  enemy,  he  turned  to  run  back,  and  stopped 
only  when  I  spoke.  I  led  him  off  a  short  distance  and 
fastened  the  bridle  to  a  sapling. 

Meanwhile  the  rattler  had  not  budged,  although  he  had 
ample  time  to  crawl  into  the  underbrush  and  escape.  As 
it  was  a  wild  and  uninhabited  stretch,  I  hoped  he  would 
go;  but  as  I  approached  again,  still  stretched  full  length 
across  the  road,  it  rattled  away  and  refused  to  move.  It 
did  not  coil  in  defense  until  I  came  near  with  a  long  tree- 
branch,  raised  to  strike.  Then  it  gathered  itself  in  half- 
coil;  that  is,  doubling  up  the  posterior  two-thirds  of  its 
body,  the  part  nearest  the  head  was  drawn  back  in  an  S- 
shape,  and  the  open  mouth,  with  the  large  poison -fangs 
in  view,  was   shot   toward   me  very  rapidly  four  or  five 

154 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

times.  I  broke  his  back  and  pounded  his  head.  He  meas- 
ured in  length  the  distance  between  the  regulation  wagon- 
wheels  (forty-eight  inches),  and  had  nine  rattles  and  a  but- 
ton, which  I  cut  off  and  kept  as  a  souvenir.  In  passing  I 
may  note  the  practice  of  the  country  fiddlers  at  home  to  drop 
one  of  these  rattles  inside  their  violins  to  increase  the  tone 
or  resonance.  I  was  curious  to  register  the  circumference 
of  this,  the  largest  rattler  I  ever  killed  (I  never  saw  but  one 
larger  out  of  captivity).  Having  no  measuring-tape  with 
me,  I  stripped  a  ribbon  of  bark  from  a  hickory  sapling,  car- 
ried it  around  the  animal's  body  at  the  largest  part,  and 
marked  it.  It  measured  nine  inches  by  the  foot-rule.  The 
sound  of  the  rattle  is  like  the  clatter  of  dry  beans  in  a  pod. 

Rattlesnakes  are  rarely  seen  in  the  water.  Only  once 
have  I  seen  one  swimming,  and  this  was  in  Arkansas  in  1869. 
The  boat  upon  which  I  was  acting  as  pilot  was  lying  at  a 
wood-yard  on  Little  Red  River,  when  swimming  directly 
toward  us  from  the  opposite  shore  we  saw  a  rattler  about 
three  feet  long.  The  engineer  and  another  man  rowed  out 
in  a  yawl,  and  the  former  skilfully  caught  the  animal — ■ 
which  was  helpless  in  the  water — just  back  of  the  head  with 
one  hand  and  near  the  tail  with  the  other,  and  brought  the 
captive  on  board.  It  was  an  exhibition  of  nerve  I  had  never 
before  seen — one  I  would  not  have  repeated  for  the  gold  of 
Ophir. 

There  is  really  very  little  danger  of  death  even  from 
venomous  snakes,  and  none  whatever  from  the  constrictors 
of  North  America.  I  saw  one  of  our  negroes  actually  tangled 
up  in  the  coils  of  a  very  long  black  racer,  and  I  have  never 
seen  a  human  being  more  frightened.  I  was  on  horseback, 
and,  with  the  negroes  on  foot,  was  trying  to  drive  a  small  herd 
of  cattle  along  a  country  road.     As  one  of  the  cows  started 

155 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  turn  into  a  patch  of  short,  stubby  bushes  I  shouted  to 
one  of  the  men  to  head  her  off,  and  he  darted  at  full  speed 
through  the  bushes,  which  were  just  about  as  high  as  his 
knees.  After  he  had  started,  and  before  I  could  possibly 
give  him  the  alarm,  I  saw  from  my  elevated  seat  on  horse- 
back a  tremendous  long  blacksnake  lying  at  full  length 
near  the  top  of  the  dense  bushes,  evidently  waiting  for  an 
unsuspecting  bird.  In  another  instant,  moving  at  full 
speed,  the  negro's  leg  hit  the  snake  about  its  middle  and 
doubled  the  frightened  creature  around  him.  The  darky 
screamed,  kicked  wildly  with  both  legs,  and  fell  over  yell- 
ing, but  before  we  could  go  to  his  rescue  the  swift  traveler, 
true  to  his  name,  had  raced  away. 

There  has  not  been,  so  far  as  I  am  informed,  a  fatal  case 
of  snake-bite  in  Marshall  County,  and,  considering  the  large 
number  of  these  reptiles  when  I  was  living  in  this  compara- 
tively unsettled  section — 1 845-1 869 — very  few  persons  were 
bitten.  A  young  girl  of  twelve  was  struck  on  the  ankle  by 
a  water-moccasin.  The  leg  was  considerably  swollen  and 
painful  for  several  days,  but  the  constitutional  symptoms 
were  insignificant. 

There  is  no  danger  in  approaching  a  snake  in  coil  or  ex- 
tended, provided  one  keeps  his  distance  with  ordinary  care. 
That  part  of  the  body  which  rests  upon  the  ground  as  it 
strikes  with  the  anterior  portion  never  budges.  They  can- 
not leap  or  jump,  and  cannot  strike  while  crawling.  The 
so-called  suicide  of  the  snake  by  biting  itself  is  another 
fiction,  since  it  is  well  known  that  the  venom  of  a  reptile 
is  innocuous  to  itself  or  its  kind,  although  it  may  be  fatal 
to  another  snake  of  a  different  species.  I  have  frequently 
seen  them  bite  at  a  stick  with  which  I  held  them  down  and 
occasionally  miss  the  stick  and  bite  themselves,  but  I  believe 

156 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  act  was  accidental  rather  than  intentional.  Moreover, 
they  do  not  spit  their  venom.  I  have  seen  it  ooze  out  and 
adhere  to  a  stick  with  which  I  was  teasing  the  snake,  but 
never  saw  it  leave  the  mouth  any  other  way.  I  can 
imagine  that  if  one  were  exuding  a  large  quantity  it  would 
be  possible,  as  the  animal  struck  out  in  the  attempt  to  bite, 
to  throw  off  a  small  quantity;  but  I  have  never  seen  this 
happen. 

I  have  been  told  by  several  natives  that  they  had  seen 
very  young  snakes  run  for  shelter  and  disappear  down  the 
open  mouth  of  the  mother  reptile,  but  I  cannot  vouch  for 
this  as  a  fact.  While  I  have  never  seen  a  battle-royal  be- 
tween two  snakes,  I  do  not  doubt  that  they  kill  and  eat  each 
other.  One  such  combat  was  witnessed  by  my  friend  Mr. 
John  S.  Sutphen,  of  New  York. 

"I  was  trout-fishing,"  he  said,  "in  Pike  County,  Penn- 
sylvania, in  the  spring  of  1905,  when  by  a  rare  chance  I 
saw  a  fight  to  the  death  between  a  rattlesnake  about  thirty 
inches  long  and  a  blacksnake  fully  five  feet  long.  I  was 
following  a  narrow,  winding  trail  when  I  heard  a  rustling 
in  the  leaves  near  by.  Peering  through  the  undergrowth, 
I  observed  in  a  small  clear  space  not  fifteen  feet  away  a 
small  rattler  coiled,  with  his  head  up  and  his  rattle  buzzing 
vigorously.  Facing  him,  with  his  head  about  three  feet  dis- 
tant, was  his  natural  enemy,  a  long,  graceful,  and  beautiful 
black  racer,  stretched  at  full  length.  Both  seemed  oblivious 
to  the  presence  of  a  spectator. 

"Presently  the  black  fellow  began  to  encircle  the  rattler, 
carefully  keeping  out  of  harm's  way  as  the  head  above  the 
coil  constantly  turned  to  face  him.  Soon  the  strategy  of 
the  black  was  apparent,  for  as  he  spun  faster  and  faster 
around  the  rattler  he  gradually  decreased  the  distance,  and 

157 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

soon  he  was  so  close  that  the  rattlesnake  struck — and  missed. 
Twice  the  black  adroitly  dodged  the  blows,  then  boldly 
drew  his  circle  still  closer  and  glided  still  faster,  as  if  taunting 
the  foe  to  strike  again.  This  the  rattler  did,  when,  with  a 
movement  so  lightning-like  that  my  eyes  could  hardly  fol- 
low it,  the  black  racer  seized  him  with  his  jaws  just  back  of 
the  head.  In  a  few  seconds  the  black  coiled  himself  around 
the  rattlesnake  and  quickly  strangled  it.  Then,  to  my 
great  surprise,  the  black  racer  began  to  swallow  his  victim 
head  foremost,  and  when  I  left  the  scene  of  the  tragedy 
that  had  held  me  in  its  spell  the  process  was  well  ad- 
vanced." 

Before  closing  this  sketch  I  wish  to  record  an  experience 
of  my  friend  the  late  Dr.  John  S.  Billings,  a  surgeon  in  the 
United  States  army  for  many  years,  and,  at  the  time  of 
his  death,  the  librarian  of  the  New  York  Public  Library. 
It  may  be  accepted  as  absolutely  true,  for  I  knew  him  well, 
and  I  am  indebted  to  him  for  great  help  in  my  article  on 
serpent  venom  in  my  work  on  surgery.  In  the  experi- 
ments on  snake  poisons  he  was  conducting  he  had  in  confine- 
ment a  six-foot  diamond-backed  Florida  rattler.  Rattle- 
snakes are  difficult  to  retain  alive,  as  they  are  fastidious  and 
will  starve  to  death  imless  they  can  have  the  food  which 
tempts  them.  This  one  would  eat  only  white  rats,  and  one 
of  these  was  dropped  into  the  large  barrel  in  the  bottom  of 
which  the  snake  was  lying. 

Next  morning  Dr.  Billings  was  astonished  to  see  the  rat 
resting  at  ease  by  the  body  of  the  dead  reptile.  Upon 
examination  it  was  discovered  that  the  spinal  cord,  just 
where  it  joins  the  medulla  oblongata  at  the  base  of  the  brain, 
had  been  gnawed  into  and  divided  by  the  sharp,  long  teeth 
of  the  clever  and  plucky  old  rodent.     Without  doubt,  as  he 

158 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

landed  in  the  bottom  of  the  barrel  and  realized  his  situa- 
tion he  had  with  the  instinct  of  the  mongoose,  which  de- 
stroys the  cobra  in  this  same  manner,  seized  his  enemy  in 
the  one  safe  and  vital  spot  and  never  let  loose  until  his 
teeth  had  cut  through  the  real  center  of  life. 


XIII 

MY   YEAR   AT   COLLEGE — THE    GUNBOAT   INCIDENT 

How  few  of  US  realize  the  career  of  which  we  dreamed  in 
boyhood!  Mine  was  to  be  a  soldier.  It  may  have  been 
the  wild  life  about  me,  the  early  familiarity  with  horse  and 
gun,  or  perhaps  in  the  strain,  for  the  ancestors  of  each  of 
my  parents  had  fought  through  the  war  for  American  inde- 
pendence. The  first  book  I  read  was  the  life  of  Francis 
Marion.  Nothing  has  ever  fascinated  me  as  did  the  story 
of  this  dashing  partisan.  I  lived  over  and  over  again  with 
him  each  hair-breadth  escape,  each  thrilling  exploit,  and 
suffered  with  him  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  the  misery  of 
defeat.  Then  followed  Weems's  Lije  oj  Washington,  Ab- 
bott's Napoleon  Bonaparte,  and  a  book  of  the  marshals  of 
the  great  soldier.     My  mind  was  made  up. 

One  day  in  the  autumn  of  i860,  when  I  was  fifteen  years 
old,  while  attending  the  fair  at  Athens,  in  Limestone  County, 
I  saw  the  cadet  corps  of  La  Grange  Military  Academy  giv- 
ing an  exhibition  drill.  It  was  wonderful.  The  beautifully 
fitting  uniforms  of  gray  and  white,  the  tall  black  caps,  the 
guns  and  bayonets  glinting  in  the  sunlight,  the  perfection 
of  manual,  the  complicated  manoeuvers  carried  out  with 
marvelous  precision,  left  a  picture  in  my  mind  which  stands 
out  now  clear  and  distinct,  despite  the  fifty-three  years 
that  time  has  interposed. 

As  I  was  ready  for  college,  and  as  my  father  approved 

160 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

my  selection,  I  matriculated  as  a  cadet  on  February  i, 
1 86 1.  This  institution,  famous  in  the  old  South,  was  situ- 
ated in  what  was  then  Franklin,  now  Colbert  County, 
Alabama,  upon  the  summit  of  a  spur  of  the  Cumberland 
Mountains,  which,  rising  about  four  hundred  feet  above  the 
surrounding  country,  overlooks  the  far  -  stretching  valley 
of  the  Tennessee.  La  Grange  College,  chartered  by  the 
legislature  of  Alabama,  had  opened  its  doors  in  1830,  and 
was  conducted  strictly  as  a  literary  school  until  1857,  when 
the  military  feature  was  introduced.  Under  the  new  regime 
it  reached  its  highest  degree  of  popularity  and  prosperity. 
With  wise  forethought  the  state  provided  for  the  free  edu- 
cation of  two  boys  from  each  county,  selected  by  competi- 
tive examination.  The  only  obligation  incurred  was  that 
each  cadet  should  teach  school  in  his  native  county  for  as 
many  years  as  he  was  at  La  Grange.  In  1861,  out  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy  enrolled,  forty-seven  were  state  cadets. 
The  course  of  study  was  for  four  years;  the  curriculum  was 
that  of  the  National  Academy  at  West  Point.  The  teaching 
was  of  the  highest  order,  the  discipline  very  strict,  but  never 
unjustly  severe.  The  students  almost  without  exception 
were  earnest,  honest,  and  manly  fellows,  of  fine  physical 
and  mental  development;  and  but  for  the  unhappy  war, 
which  involved  this  school  in  its  trail  of  destruction,  it 
would  without  doubt  have  ranked  higher  each  year  as  one 
of  the  greatest  educational  institutions  in  the  South,  and  of 
inestimable  value  in  the  moral  and  mental  training  of  the 
people. 

Looking  back  upon  the  year  I  spent  at  La  Grange,  if  I 
passed  through  any  unpleasant  experiences  they  have  been 
forgotten,  and  there  is  now  present  in  my  mind  nothing 
but  the  memory  of  happy  associations  and  a  sincere  ap- 

161 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

preciation  of  the  fact  that  the  days  there  were  of  great  help 
in  fitting  me  for  my  subsequent  career.  Doubtless  at  the 
time  I  protested  inwardly  at  the  hard  work  which  was  re- 
quired, some  of  which  may  then  have  seemed  like  drudgery. 
To  sweep  the  floor,  dust  the  room,  carry  water  and  wood, 
and  to  be  held  responsible  for  the  order  and  cleanliness 
of  our  apartments  were  novel  experiences.  Nor  was  the 
scramble  out  of  bed  at  the  sound  of  reveille,  the  hurry  to 
dress,  the  rush  down-stairs  to  get  in  line  and  answer  to  roll- 
call  before  being  marked  late  or  absent,  always  a  pleasant 
duty,  especially  for  boys,  who  as  a  rule  love  to  sleep  late. 
Yet  this  was  a  valuable  lesson,  for  no  one  could  have  re- 
mained long  at  La  Grange  without  being  converted  to  the 
early-rising  habit.  Then,  when  the  roll-call  was  over,  there 
was  still  the  bed  to  be  made,  blankets  and  mattress  rolled 
and  buckled  with  a  leather  strap,  the  iron  bedstead  folded 
and  placed  against  the  wall  for  economy  of  space,  shoes  to 
be  polished,  and  in  a  few  minutes  more  the  return  to  the 
campus  to  fall  in  for  breakfast  roll-call  and  the  march  to 
the  mess-hall. 

It  required  a  large  dining-hall  to  seat  nearly  two  hundred 
cadets.  At  each  table  there  were  ten  privates  and  two 
officers,  commissioned  or  non-commissioned,  who  sat  at  the 
head  and  foot,  respectively,  according  to  rank,  the  cadets 
at  either  side;  and  the  ranking  officer  was  held  responsible 
for  the  deportment  of  the  students  at  his  table. 

After  the  breakfast-hour  v/e  had  recitations  and  study 
until  twelve.  Dinner  from  twelve  until  one;  in  the  after- 
noon recitations  and  study  until  five,  and  from  five  to  six 
either  infantry  or  artillery  drill.  At  six  o'clock  we  had 
dress-parade,  and  when  we  broke  ranks  we  repaired  to  our 
quarters,  put  away  our  guns  and  accouterments,  and  im- 

162 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

mediately  returned  to  the  campus  to  fall  in  for  supper. 
At  dark  the  patrol  was  posted  to  stand  guard  until  ten;  at 
nine  o'clock  the  drum  beat  for  "lights  out,"  and  the  day's 
work  was  over. 

On  Saturday  mornings  we  had  full-dress  parade  and  in- 
spection, in  which  the  most  careful  scrutiny  was  made,  not 
only  of  every  article  of  clothing  as  to  strict  personal  clean- 
liness, but  of  the  arms  and  accouterments,  belt-plates,  and 
gun-trimmings.  In  the  afternoon  of  Saturday  we  usually 
played  football  or  "foot-and-a-half,"  a  long-distance  leap 
over  one  another,  or  exercised  on  the  ring  swings  or  hori- 
zontal bars,  or  by  special  permission  took  long  strolls 
through  the  mountain  forests  or  in  the  valley.  On  Sunday 
we  attended  church.  There  were  services  in  the  chapel 
daily. 

At  the  July  examinations  my  general  standing  in  the 
foiirth,  or  freshman,  class,  the  last  "half-term"  of  which  I 
had  entered  in  February,  was  eighth  in  a  class  of  twenty- 
eight.  Then  for  the  two  weeks'  vacation  I  hurried  home; 
and,  as  the  steamboat  did  not  leave  Decatur  for  two  days, 
we  five  cadets  from  Marshall  County  left  our  trunks  to  come 
by  boat,  continued  by  train  to  Woodville,  in  Jackson  County, 
and  walked  in  eight  hours  the  twenty-six  miles  across  the 
mountains  to  Guntersville.  Upon  my  return  I  entered  the 
third,  or  sophomore,  class,  and  passed  all  the  examinations 
before  the  close  of  the  session  for  the  winter  holiday. 

Earlier  in  the  year  the  war  had  begun,  and  the  spirit 
of  unrest  was  in  the  air.  South  Carolina  had  seceded  on 
December  20,  i860,  and  Florida  and  Mississippi  soon  fol- 
lowed. On  January  11,  1861,  Alabama  passed  the  ordi- 
nance, and  these  four  states,  with  Georgia  and  Louisiana, 
had  on  February  4th  met  at  Montgomery  to  organize  the 

163 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Southern  Confederacy;  but  with  all  this  I  did  not  dream  of 
the  great  catastrophe  which  was  impending. 

I  remember  distinctly  that  one  night  while  on  sentry  duty, 
marching  up  and  down  on  my  post  in  front  of  Barracks  B, 
I  noticed  a  peculiar  mist-like  star  which  I  soon  recognized 
as  a  comet.  No  one  else  had  observed  it,  nor  had  we 
any  notice  of  its  coming.  I  called  the  attention  of  others 
to  it,  and  night  after  night  we  watched  its  approach  toward 
the  earth  with  increasing  interest,  until  it  became  the  most 
remarkable  heavenly  body  I  have  ever  seen.  In  its  nearest 
position  it  seemed  to  stretch  more  than  half  the  entire 
distance  across  the  heavens,  the  starry  point  being  toward 
the  west  and  the  nebulous  trail  spread  out  in  a  great  flow- 
ing mist  far  toward  the  eastern  horizon.  The  superstitious 
considered  it  to  be  the  forerunner  of  some  great  disaster. 
The  wise  men  of  the  country  should  have  known  then  that 
the  disaster  had  already  arrived. 

By  March  and  April,  1861,  there  was  a  call  for  volunteers, 
and  a  very  considerable  number  of  the  cadets  resigned  and 
returned  to  their  homes  in  order  to  enlist  in  the  first  com- 
panies which  marched  to  the  front.  By  the  time  the  first 
session  ended  with  the  commencement  on  the  4th  and  5  th 
of  July,  1 86 1,  fully  one-fourth  of  the  corps  had  enlisted. 
Among  the  first  to  leave  were  Fielding  Bradford,  Bob  Coles, 
and  Jimmy  Brandon,  all  of  whom  had  volunteered  with 
one  of  the  Huntsville  companies  which  made  part  of  the 
famous  Fourth  Alabama  Infantry.  Bradford  was  killed, 
and  Jimmy  was  wounded  at  the  Battle  of  Bull  Run,  in  July, 
1 86 1.  Soon  after  this  Brandon  came  home  on  furlough 
and  visited  his  college-mates  at  La  Grange.  His  presence 
excited  the  envy  of  every  lad  who  had  not  been  allowed  to 
go  home  to  volunteer.      To  have  been  in  a  great  battle, 

164 


o  o 
3B 

3  TO 


S'5 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

wounded  and  furloughed,  made  Jimmy  a  hero,  and  all  of  us 
would  probably  have  given  our  hopes  of  immortality  to  have 
been  in  his  place.  This  gallant,  handsome  lad  joined  my 
regiment  in  1863,  and  was  killed  at  Big  Shanty  in  1864. 

When,  early  in  1862,  northern  Alabama  became  the  scene 
of  active  hostilities  the  college  closed  its  doors  and  re- 
mained unoccupied  until  April  28,  1863,  when  it  was  de- 
stroyed by  fire  by  Federal  cavalry  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Florence  M.  Comyn.  The  destruction  of  this  in- 
stitution of  learning  was  not  only  not  a  military  necessity, 
but  was  in  disobedience  of  the  orders  of  General  Grenville  M. 
Dodge,  in  command  of  this  expedition.  In  his  official  report, 
on  page  250  of  Volume  XXIII,  Part  I,  Official  Reports,  he 
says :  "They  were  guilty  of  but  one  disobedience  of  orders,  in 
burning  some  houses  between  Town  Creek  and  Tuscumbia, 
on  discovery  of  which  I  issued  orders  to  shoot  any  man 
detected  in  the  act."  This  officer,  now,  in  19 14,  a  resident 
of  Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  in  a  personal  communication  to  the 
writer  says,  "It  was  a  matter  of  great  regret  that  my  troops 
exceeded  their  authority  and  destroyed  these  buildings." 

A  bill  was  introduced  in  Congress  in  1904  by  Hon.  William 
Richardson  to  reimburse  the  trustees  of  La  Grange  Military 
Academy  for  the  loss  sustained  by  the  destruction  of  this 
property  during  the  Civil  War.  To  replace  at  this  period 
the  Ubrary  of  four  thousand  volumes  belonging  to  the  in- 
stitution, together  with  the  chemical  and  physical  appara- 
tus, furniture,  buildings,  etc.,  would  require  at  the  lowest 
estimate  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Upon  the  intro- 
duction of  this  bill  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  Court  of 
Claims.  Over  the  door  of  that  court  might  well  be  written 
the  quotation  from  Dante,  "Who  enters  here  leaves  Hope 
behind." 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

My  native  section  of  the  South  still  feels  the  need  of  such 
a  college  as  La  Grange,  and  I  have  never  given  up  the  hope 
that  some  day  some  great-souled,  far-seeing  philanthropist 
would  rebuild  and  perpetuate  this  institution. 

I  published,  in  1907,  The  History  of  La  Grange  Military 
Academy  and  the  Cadet  Corps.  Of  the  one  hundred  and 
seventy -nine  cadets,  with  the  exception  of  three  lads  who 
to  the  end  of  the  war  were  still  too  young  to  enter  the  ser- 
vice, all  became  soldiers  of  the  Confederacy.  Of  this  num- 
ber twenty-three  were  killed  in  battle,  and  twenty-six  died 
in  the  service  from  wounds  or  diseases  incident  to  exposure, 
a  total  doath-rate  in  the  war  of  nearly  twenty-eight  per  cent. 
Of  those  who  survived  many  suffered  from  wounds  or  ac- 
quired diseases  which  carried  them,  soon  after  the  close  of 
hostilities,  to  untimely  graves,  while  some  who  still  live 
are  suffering  from  those  injuries  which  have  handicapped 
them  in  their  struggle  for  the  support  of  themselves  and 
families.  True  to  their  convictions  of  duty,  they  were 
worthy  sons  of  the  land  they  loved.  The  story  of  their 
war  experiences  would  fill  a  volume  of  thrilling  narrative, 
and  were  it  possible  I  would  honor  these  pages  with  the 
roster  of  their  names  and  the  record  of  their  heroism.^ 
There  were  four,  however,  to  whom  I  am  closely  bound 
by  the  ties  of  an  affectionate  friendship,  which,  commenc- 
ing in  youth,  ripened  with  the  years  of  maturity  and  crys- 
tallized with  age.  They  were  of  the  flower  of  our  country, 
typical  of  the  spirit  of  the  South. 

James  Alston  McKinstry,  from  Pickens  County,  was  my 

*  In  1904,  forty-three  years  after  we  had  disbanded,  twenty-eight  survivors 
of  the  Corps  held  a  reunion  in  the  Old  Brick  Church  at  La  Grange.  No 
other  building  had  been  spared.  The  college  campus  was  a  dense  tangle  of 
briers  and  saplings.  From  the  mound  and  debris  where  ray  room  had  been, 
a  sycamore-tree  fully  thirty  feet  high  was  growing. 

166 


p    D 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

chum,  and  had  the  distinction  of  heading  our  class  in  mathe- 
matics. He  enhsted  as  a  private  in  Company  D,  Forty- 
second  Alabama  Infantry,  and  was  in  the  assault  on  Fort 
Robinet  at  Corinth,  October  4,  1862,  One  hundred  yards 
in  front  of  this  fort  was  a  dense  abatis,  and  while  working 
their  way  through  this  tangle  the  command  siiffered  great 
loss  from  the  direct  fire  in  front  and  from  two  enfilading 
batteries.  The  survivors  rushed  across  the  open  space  and 
leaped  into  the  ditch,  where  they  were  met  with  a  shower 
of  hand-grenades,  some  of  which  they  picked  up  and  hurled 
back  into  the  fort,  where  they  exploded.  As  they  clambered 
out  of  the  ditch  and  up  to  the  parapet  they  received  a  vol- 
ley which  killed  a  comrade,  who  in  falling  threw  his  arms 
about  Jim,  and  he  and  the  dead  man  rolled  back  into  the 
ditch.  Regaining  his  footing  and  clearing  the  angle  of  a 
bastion,  just  as  he  recognized  a  small  group  of  Confederates 
within  the  fort  he  emptied  his  gun  at  a  Federal  soldier,  the 
muzzle  almost  touching  his  breast.  As  this  man  fell  their 
reserve  line  fired  a  volley,  and  of  the  fourteen  assailants 
who  still  survived  all  but  McKinstry  were  killed.  He  re- 
ceived a  Minie  ball  through  the  upper  part  of  one  arm,  an- 
other through  the  shoulder,  which  fortunately  did  not  pene- 
trate the"  lung,  while  a  third  passed  through  the  muscles 
of  the  thigh.  TumbHng  again  into  the  ditch,  he  ran  along 
this  and  hid  under  some  debris  until  nightfall,  when  he 
made  his  escape.  On  the  forced  march  in  the  retreat  to 
Tupelo,  for  two  days  and  nights,  this  lad  of  seventeen,  with 
three  painful  wounds,  lay  on  the  botton  of  a  wagon-bed  jolt- 
ing over  rough  country  roads.  A  photograph  of  the  dead 
bodies  of  these  men,  taken  where  they  fell,  may  be 
seen  in  the  Photographic  History  of  the  War,  published  in 
191 1.     I  place  the  incident  on  record  here  as  one  of  the 

167 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

thousands  which  occurred  in  a  war  as  unnecessary  as  it 
was  cruel. ^ 

Robert  Thompson  Coles,  descended  from  one  of  the  old 
Virginia  families  at  Huntsville,  joined  the  Fourth  Alabama 
Infantry,  one  of  the  most  famous  regiments  in  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia.  He  became  adjutant  of  this  regiment, 
was  in  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run  and  at  Appomattox,  and 
except  when  wounded  was  in  every  battle  in  which  this 
great  army  was  engaged. 

Thomas  Edward  Stanley,  of  Lawrence  County,  Alabama, 
became  lieutenant  in  Company  B,  Tenth  Alabama  Infantry, 
and,  receiving  two  wounds  at  Chickamauga,  was  carried 
to  his  uncle's  house  near  Leighton,  Alabama.  While  there 
the  Union  army  occupied  the  country,  but  with  the  aid  of 
the  faithful  negroes  he  was  concealed  until  he  was  con- 
valescent. Armed  with  a  shotgun,  he  surprised  and  cap- 
tured an  officer  who  was  inspecting  his  outposts,  appro- 
priated his  horse  and  equipment,  and  rejoined  his  command.^ 

Frederick  Moseley  Nelson, of  Limestone  County, Alabama, 
served  in  the  Seventh  Alabama  Cavalry.^  In  J.  P.  Young's 
history  mention  is  made  of  his  gallant  conduct.  The  fol- 
lowing experience  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  strange  vicissi- 
tudes of  a  soldier's  career. 

As  Fred  was  leaving  home  his  thoughtful  father  gave  him 
a  small  Derringer  pistol,  which  was  easily  carried  in  the 
side-pocket  of  his  forage  jacket,  with  the  remark  that  he 
might  need  it  some  day  when  he  did  not  have  his  six- 
shooter.     Out  of  respect  to  his  parent's  admonition,  Fred 

1  As  modest  and  retiring  as  they  were  brave,  Jim  McKinstry  and  Bob  Coles 
are  still  living  (1914),  loved  and  respected  as  leading  citizens  of  Marshall 
County,  Alabama. 

^  Stanley  settled  in  Arkansas,  became  prominent  in  politics  as  a  state 
senator,  and  died  in  1904.  '  Nelson  survives  in  Mississippi. 

168 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

kept  the  small  weapon  ready  for  use.  One  day  while  on 
picket  duty  he  had  dismounted  and  was  sitting  at  the  root 
of  a  tree,  engaged  in  the  pleasant  perusal  of  a  communica- 
tion from  his  sweetheart.  He  glanced  often  down  the  road 
in  the  direction  from  which  the  enemy  would  be  likely  to  come, 
and  was  satisfied  that  none  was  approaching.  The  crack- 
ing of  a  dead  twig  immediately  in  the  rear  attracted  his  at- 
tention, and,  turning  suddenly  in  that  direction,  he  found 
himself  covered  with  a  six-shooter  in  the  hands  of  a  Federal 
who  had  stealthily  crept  up  behind  him.  He  was  told  to 
stand  up,  unbuckle  his  pistol-belt,  let  it  drop  to  the  ground, 
and  walk  off  a  few  steps,  which  orders  he  obeyed.  He  was 
then  told  to  mount  his  horse  and  ride  alongside  as  a  prisoner 
of  war.  He  had  not  lost  sight  of  an  opportunity  to  use  the 
Derringer,  and  the  two  had  not  proceeded  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  before  Fred,  getting  the  weapon  out  unobserved,  had 
it  cocked,  and,  turning  quickly,  presented  it  within  three  feet 
of  the  body  of  his  captor,  telling  him  to  throw  up  his  hands. 
Fred  immediately  made  himself  possessor  of  the  four  pis- 
tols, and  marched  the  chagrined  Yankee  triumphantly  into 
his  own  headquarters. 

My  first  and  only  year  at  college  ended  in  December, 
1 86 1.  In  that  period  our  state  had  seceded,  the  Southern 
Confederacy  was  organized,  with  the  capital  at  Montgomery, 
war  was  formally  declared,  and  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  had 
been  fought.  Then  came  a  lull,  which  every  one  knew  was 
the  hush  before  the  storm.  The  war-fever  was  spreading 
on  both  sides  of  the  line.  In  the  South  it  ran  high.  On 
my  way  home  every  village  seemed  ablaze  with  bunting. 
On  every  plantation,  home,  and  farm-house  the  "Bonnie 
Blue  Flag"  was  flying.  Three  companies  of  infantry  and 
one  of  cavalry  had  already  gone  from  our  county.  With 
12  169 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

these  were  one  or  two  boys  of  my  age  (sixteen),  and  I 
wanted  to  enlist.  As  I  was  small  of  stature,  my  parents 
argued  that  I  should  wait  another  year  and  work  on  the 
farm.  My  father,  though  well  beyond  the  military  age, 
enlisted  and  went  to  the  front  and  left  me  as  the  man  of 
the  family.  When  the  farming  season  opened  in  1862,  I 
plowed,  planted,  and  cultivated  without  assistance  ten  acres 
in  corn.  Incidentally  I  learned  that  farming  is  not  an  easy 
way  of  earning  a  Hvelihood,  and  that  there  are  few  hotter 
places  on  earth  than  a  waist-high  field  of  com  in  the  Ten- 
nessee River  bottoms  about  "laying -by"  time,  early  in 
July.  I  missed  only  one  work-day,  and  this  was  on  the 
8th  of  June. 

The  fortunes  of  war  were  going  against  the  Confederacy 
in  the  West.  Shiloh  had  followed  Fort  Donelson,  and  all  of 
Alabama  north  of  the  Tennessee  was  now  occupied  by  the 
Union  army,  and  their  gunboats  had  reached  Florence. 
Above  this  point  that  great  obstacle  to  through  naviga- 
tion of  this  noble  river,  the  "Mussel  Shoals,"  prevented 
their  going.  The  upper  Tennessee  is  landlocked,  and  the 
Confederates  had  made  way  with  all  the  steamboats  above 
the  Shoals.  In  this  emergency  the  Federal  commander  at 
Huntsville  improvised  a  small  gunboat  with  steam  motor- 
power,  protected  it  with  an  armor  of  cotton  bales,  placed 
on  board  two  six-pounder  Parrott  guns  and  a  crew  of  some 
sixty  men  of  the  Tenth  Ohio  Infantry,  and  sent  it  on  its  way 
to  take  possession  of  the  upper  Tennessee. 

It  was  such  a  slow  tub  that  at  Guntersville  we  knew  it 
was  coming  six  hours  before  it  hove  in  sight.  A  man  on 
horseback  who  saw  it  start  had  brought  the  news.  Our 
local  humorist,  the  genial  sheriff,  said  of  it  after  the  excite- 
ment of  its  advent  had  subsided,  that  "up-stream  it  could 

170 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

run  all  day  under  the  shade  of  a  leaning  sycamore,  while 
going  the  other  way  the  current  went  by  it  so  fast  it  made 
your  head  swim." 

On  this  eventful  8th  of  June,  while  I  was  following  a  mule 
and  a  turning-plow  up  and  down  the  long  rows  of  growing 
com,  with  thoughts  about  as  far  removed  from  Cincinnatus 
or  Israel  Putnam  or  glory  as  one  pole  is  from  the  other,  a 
lad  from  the  village  came  to  give  me  the  exciting  information 
that  the  gimboat  was  coming,  and  everybody  who  could 
shoot  a  gun  was  rallying  to  defend  the  town.  As  soon  as 
I  could  unhitch  my  mule,  we  rode  toward  home,  and  when 
near  enough,  not  wishing  to  alarm  my  mother,  I  slipped  in 
through  a  back  window,  got  my  double-barreled  shotgun 
and  ammunition,  and  was  just  making  my  exit  through 
the  same  opening  when  I  heard  a  familiar  voice  say, 
"Hadn't  you  better  go  out  through  the  door?"  I  saluted 
my  commanding  ofQcer,  my  mother,  and  hurried  out  as 
directed.  The  truth  is,  if  I  hadn't  come  in  of  my  own 
accord  she  would  have  sent  for  me  and  handed  me  the  gun 
at  the  gate  and  made  me  go.  Some  twenty  of  us,  old  men 
and  boys,  reached  the  river-landing  in  time  to  see  the 
United  States  gunboat  Tennessee  pass  at  a  snail's  pace, 
closely  hugging  the  northern  bank  of  the  stream,  and  tak- 
ing no  more  notice  of  our  presence  than  if  we  hadn't  been 
"bushwhackers"  aching  to  fill  anybody  who  had  on  blue 
clothes  full  of  buckshot! 

After  a  hurried  conference  we  rode  as  fast  as  our  mounts 
could  carry  us  to  a  point  a  few  miles  above  Guntersville, 
where,  at  the  low  stage  of  water  which  then  prevailed,  the 
channel  was  near  enough  to  the  southern  bank  to  bring  the 
craft  in  reach  of  our  shotguns.  Arriving  there,  we  dis- 
mounted some  two  hundred  yards  back  in  the  woods,  and, 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  give  my  mule  a  chance  to  graze,  I  tied  one  end  of  a 
long  plow-line  around  his  neck  and  the  other  to  an  ash 
sapling.  Our  company  advanced,  and  we  ranged  ourselves 
along  the  bank,  entirely  concealed  in  the  thick  growth  of 
cane.  As  the  queer-looking  boat  came  puffing  toward  us, 
the  crew,  seemingly  without  any  thought  of  danger,  were 
seated  here  and  there  on  top  of  the  bulwarks,  evidently 
enjoying  the  scenery  and  sunshine.  It  seemed  as  if  our 
captain  pro  tern  would  never  say  "Fire!"  but  when  he  did 
and  we  turned  loose  our  fusillade  of  twenty  double-barreled 
shotguns  and  rifles,  the  blue  coats  disappeared  into  the  hold, 
as  Artemus  Ward  would  have  said,  "unanimously." 

In  another  minute  they  opened  on  us  with  their  long- 
range  rifles,  and  I  heard  the  singing  whiz  of  a  swarm  of 
Minie  balls  for  the  first  time.  Then  the  six-pounder  joined 
in  with  shrapnel,  at  which  by  common  consent  we  rose 
from  our  recumbent  posture  and  ran  for  our  horses,  followed, 
or  rather  passed,  by  the  screaming  shells,  which  clipped  an 
occasional  branch  from  a  tree-top,  but  flew  too  far  above 
our  heads  to  be  very  dangerous.  That  I  did  not  equal  the 
speed  of  the  negro  who  testified  in  a  shooting  case  was  not 
my  fault.  Being  under  oath,  he  was  advised  by  the  attorney 
to  be  cautious  and  exact  in  his  statement.  When  asked  if 
he  had  heard  the  bullet  whiz,  he  answered,  quietly,  "Yes, 
sah,  I  heered  it  twice."  "You  don't  mean  to  say  you 
heard  the  bullet  twice,  do  you?"  inquired  the  lawyer.  "Oh 
yes,  sah,  I  done  heered  it  twice.  Fust  time  I  heered  it 
when  it  whizzed  by  me,  an'  den,  sah,  I  heered  it  ag'n  when 
I  whizzed  by  it!" 

By  the  time  we  reached  our  animals  they  were  in  a  wild 
state  of  fright,  and  all  that  could  break  loose  had  stampeded. 
My  mule  had  evidently  tried  to  break  away  with  the  others 

172 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  had  run  as  far  as  the  tether  would  permit,  and  had  then' 
gone  into  training  as  a  circus  performer  by  circling  the  sap- 
ling turn  after  turn  in  a  gradually  decreasing  arc,  until,  when 
I  reached  him,  his  head  was  lashed  so  close  to  the  tree  no 
one  but  an  expert  could  have  told  where  the  mule  ended  and 
the  bark  began.  To  add  to  the  perplexity  of  the  situation, 
I  had  lost  my  knife;  and,  as  I  could  not  get  at  the  knot  in 
the  rope  to  luitie  it,  expecting  every  minute  to  see  the 
Yankees  land  on  our  side  and  come  swarming  up  the  bank 
in  pursuit,  I  spent  a  seeming  eternity,  along  with  some  ear- 
nest language  and  much  muscular  energy,  in  compelling 
this  proverbially  obstinate  animal  to  do  as  some  of  our  great 
jurists  do  at  times — reverse  himself.  As  soon  as  this  proc- 
ess had  been  carried  far  enough  to  slacken  the  rope  and 
expose  the  knot,  I  untied  it,  mounted,  and  rode  off  in  a  long 
stern  chase  to  catch  up  with  the  company. 

A  mile  or  so  back  in  the  depth  of  the  forest  we  rallied, 
called  the  roll,  and  found  all  present  or  accounted  for  but 
one.  As  this  one  was  the  enthusiast  who  had  summoned 
me  from  the  plow  to  defend  our  lares  et  penates,  and  as  I  had 
seen  him  leading  the  retreat,  having  thrown  his  gun  away  and 
run  out  from  under  his  hat,  I  assured  my  comrades  he  had 
not  been  killed,  also  that  while  I  was  unwinding  my  mule  he 
had  asked  me  to  go  back  with  him  to  help  find  his  gun,  a  re- 
quest which  the  exigencies  of  the  moment  forced  me  to  de- 
cline. None  had  been  killed  or  wounded  by  bullets.  Some 
few  had  passed  through  the  sharp  cane-blades  with  such 
rapidity  or  had  ridden  too  close  to  a  swinging  limb  and  bore 
the  marks  of  the  campaign  on  their  faces  and  heads.  At 
Short  Creek  the  company  halted,  dismounted,  and  washed 
its  face  preparatory  to  the  triumphal  entry  into  Gunters- 
ville. 

173 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  deeds  of  prowess  which  were  narrated  as  we  rode 
toward  town  would  fill  several  pages.  When  we  blazed 
away  with  our  sudden  shower  of  buckshot  the  unsuspecting 
crew,  who  were  airing  themselves  and  viewing  the  scenery 
from  every  point  of  vantage,  must  have  thought  Gabriel's 
trumpet  would  sound  next.  The  sheriff  said:  "Boys,  talk 
about  action !  Them  Yankees  went  out  o'  sight  quicker'n'^a 
didapper  duck."  It  was  really  a  rapid  act,  and  none  stood 
on  the  order  of  his  going.  Some  jumped  into  the  hold,  some 
rolled  or  slid  off,  and  some  turned  back  somersaults;  and 
it  looked  for  a  few  moments  as  if  we  had  killed  everybody  on 
board.  The  fact  that  the  machinery  didn't  stop,  together 
with  the  rifle  volley  which  flashed  out  of  the  port-holes  and 
the  swarm  of  Minies  which  came  singing  through  and  over 
the  cane,  began  to  undeceive  us,  and  when  the  cannon  boomed 
we  knew  we  hadn't  disabled  all.  We  compromised  on  half. 
Caesar  returning  from  Gaul  never  aroused  greater  excitement 
at  Rome  (in  proportion  to  population)  than  did  this  par- 
tisan troop  as  it  rode  by  twos  through  the  main  street  of 
Guntersville  and  disbanded  in  front  of  Kinzler's  grocery. 
It  was  a  great  day.  I  really  thought  so  then.  I  have 
laughed  at  it  a  thousand  times  since.  If  I  think  of  it  on  my 
dying  day  I  shall  smile,  and  it  will  be  worth  it.  I  have 
often  wondered  what  my  hero  Francis  Marion  would  have 
said  of  our  quixotic  performance.  For  one  I  am  glad  he  can 
never  know  it. 

The  truth  remains  that  the  boat  was  so  much  farther  out 
in  the  stream  than  we  had  estimated  that  oiu-  short-range 
guns  did  no  harm.  Years  after  the  war  I  corresponded 
with  the  surgeon  who  was  on  board.  One  buckshot  just 
did  bury  itself  in  the  shoulder-blade  of  a  young  chap  who 
didn't  glide  out  of  sight  as  quick  as  he  wished  he  had.    This 

174 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

was  the  only  casualty,  and  the  victim  never  went  to  bed 
with  it.  The  doctor  confided  that  our  volley  was  "like  a 
bolt  out  of  the  blue  sky,  and  caused  a  temporary  panic  on 
board,  which,  however,  didn't  last  as  long  as  the  bush- 
whackers on  the  bank  would  have  preferred.  The  pilot 
made  for  the  other  shore  at  once,  and  with  our  retreat  the 
"Battle  of  Law's  Landing"  passed  into  history.  I  might 
add  that  it  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  military  careers 
of  two  of  this  immortal  band. 

One  of  these,  the  Paul  Revere  who  came  riding  at  full 
speed  to  summon  me  and  others  to  glory,  who  never  fired 
his  gun  or  raised  himself  from  the  prone  position  on  the 
ground  until  an  exploding  shrapnel  furnished  the  impetus, 
and  who,  hatless  and  gunless,  led  the  movement  to  the  rear, 
never  again  heard  the  music  of  the  battle-line.  He  was 
seized  with  a  muscular  contraction  which  drew  one  leg  into 
a  knot  and  held  it  there  until  the  war  was  over,  whereupon 
it  straightway  healed,  and  he  was  restored  to  usefulness. 
He  suffered  the  fate  of  the  shirker,  as  the  village  girls  not 
only  refused  to  speak  to  him,  but  sent  him  knitting-needles 
and  bits  of  unfinished  sewing  and  all  sorts  of  gentle  hints 
as  to  how  a  young  man  who  didn't  go  into  the  army  should 
occupy  his  time.  It  was  a  pressure  no  man  could  resist  and 
survive  in  the  respect  of  his  neighbors.  Soon  after  the  war 
the  youth  went  away  to  lose  himself  in  the  all-absorbing 
West. 

To  the  other  it  furnished  a  good  excuse  for  regular  en- 
listment. There  was  a  clever  native  woman  spy  who  lived 
on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  who  kept  the  Union  command- 
er well  informed  of  all  that  happened  in  our  section  during 
the  war;  and  we  were  notified  promptly  that  the  name  of 
every  guerrilla  or  bushwhacker  who  fired  at  the  gunboat  was 

^75 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

known,  and  that  when  captured  we  would  be  hanged.  The 
argument  that  it  was  just  a  Httle  bit  better  to  be  shot  fight- 
ing than  to  be  kept  in  a  state  of  "suspense"  prevailed,  and, 
as  my  father  had  been  discharged  on  account  of  sickness  and 
physical  inabiUty  and  was  now  at  home,  my  way  was  open. 


XIV 

WITH  morgan's  cavalry — THE  CHRISTMAS  RAID — 1862-1863 

In  August  of  1862  a  detachment  of  Morgan's  cavalry, 
commanded  by  General  Basil  W.  Duke,  passed  through  our 
village  and  left  in  our  care  Lieutenant  Frank  Brady,  who 
had  been  wounded  a  few  days  before  in  a  skirmish  near 
Huntsville.  Bragg's  strategic  move  through  Cumberland 
Gap  and  across  the  upper  Tennessee  into  Kentucky  had 
caused  the  withdrawal  of  the  Union  forces  from  Alabama 
and  Tennessee.  The  battles  of  Richmond  and  Perry^^ille 
in  Kentucky  were  indecisive  and  resulted  in  the  retirement 
of  the  Confederate  army  to  the  vicinity  of  Mtufreesborough 
in  middle  Tennessee.  When  Lieutenant  Brady  had  suffi- 
ciently recovered  to  rejoin  his  command  I  went  with  him 
to  "see  the  army."  A  ride  of  three  or  four  days  brought 
us  to  Alexandria,  Tennessee,  where  Morgan's  division  was 
encamped.  Here  we  learned  that  orders  had  been  received 
to  make  a  hurried  dash  into  Kentucky,  to  destroy  the 
Louisville  &  Nashville  Railroad,  and  break  up  the  com- 
munications of  the  Federal  army  with  the  North.  As  I 
was  too  young  for  enlistment,  I  joined  Quirk's  Scouts  as  an 
"independent,"  and  took  my  place  in  that  company. 

The  expedition,  with  three  days'  cooked  rations,  started 
north  from  Alexandria  on  December  22,  1862.  The  com- 
mand was  divided  into  two  brigades.  The  First,  imder 
Brigadier-General  Basil  W.   Duke,   was  made  up  of  the 

177 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Second,  Third,  and  Eighth  Kentucky  Cavalry,  and  Palmer's 
battery  of  four  pieces,  two  of  which  were  twelve-pounder 
howitzers  and  two  six-pounder  guns.  The  Ninth,  Tenth, 
and  Eleventh  Kentucky  and  the  Fourteenth  Tennessee,  to 
which  was  attached  a  small  company  of  artillery  including 
two  motmtain  howitzers  and  one  three-inch  Parrott  gun, 
formed  the  Second  Brigade,  in  command  of  Colonel  W. 
C.  P.  Breckinridge. 

There  was  also  a  company  of  picked  men,  about  fifty  in 
number,  known  as  Quirk's  Scouts,  made  up  chiefly  of  the 
remnants  of  Morgan's  original  squadron,  which  acted 
throughout  the  expedition  as  the  advance-guard. 

The  entire  command,  including  the  artillerists,  numbered 
thirty-nine  htmdred,  of  whom  four  hundred  were  at  this 
time  unarmed.  The  command  was  generally  well  mounted 
and  the  animals  in  good  condition.  While  the  artillery  was 
an  impediment  to  a  rapid  dash  into  the  enemy's  coimtry,  it 
was  essential  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  objects  of  the 
expedition,  since  by  this  time  all  of  the  railroad  bridges, 
tunnels,  and  important  depots  of  supplies  along  the  route 
to  be  traversed  were  protected  by  forts  and  stockades,  the 
reduction  of  which  was  impossible  without  artillery. 

"Morgan's  men,"  mostly  young  fellows  from  eighteen 
to  thirty -five  years  old,  were  a  fine  lot,  and  there  were  no 
better  fighters  in  the  world.  They  idolized  their  leader, 
who  at  the  close  of  this,  his  most  successful  expedition, 
reached  the  zenith  of  his  career.  This  command,  as  well  as 
practically  all  of  our  Western  mounted  troops,  fell  short  of 
their  f\ill  efficiency  in  the  absence  of  that  strict  discipHne 
without  which  no  men  ever  make  the  best  of  soldiers.  They 
were  in  the  main  well  armed.  While  it  is  true  that  four 
hundred  of  the  command  were  without  guns,   these  did 

178 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

effective  service  as  horse-holders  until  the  rich  captures 
made  at  Elizabethtown  and  Muldraugh's  Hill  furnished 
them  with  the  very  best  of  modem  firearms.  The  entire  com- 
mand was  practically  without  sabres.  The  majority  of  the 
companies,  which  had  been  in  service  for  a  year  or  more, 
had  one  or  two  Colt's  army  pistols  for  each  man;  a  smaller 
portion  had  cavalry  carbines  captured  from  the  enemy, 
while  some  were  armed  with  double-barreled  shotguns,  a 
weapon  which  at  that  period  was  capable  of  doing  excellent 
service  in  the  close-range  fighting  to  which  cavalry  was  ac- 
customed. The  greater  part  of  the  troops,  however,  car- 
ried long-barreled  rifles,  some  Enfields  and  some  of  Austrian 
and  Belgian  make,  weapons  w^ell  adapted  to  fighting  on  foot, 
but  clumsy  to  carry  on  horseback.  As  Morgan's  men,  and 
in  fact  all  of  the  Confederate  cavalry,  did  most  of  their 
fighting  on  foot,  this  long  giin  was  an  advantage  rather 
than  otherwise.  Each  man  was  expected  to  carry  two  horse- 
shoes, a  dozen  nails,  all  the  ammunition  he  might  need,  one 
blanket,  and  an  oil-cloth  or  overcoat.  There  was  nothing 
on  wheels  but  the  artillery. 

Late  in  the  day  we  crossed  the  Cumberland  River  at 
Sand  Shoals,  and  camped  in  the  woods  at  dark  about  six 
miles  north  of  Carthage,  Tennessee.  By  dayUght  of  the 
23d  we  were  in  the  saddle,  at  eleven  stopping  an  hour  to 
feed  and  rest,  and  then  on  imtil  dark  toward  Tompkinsville, 
Kentucky.  No  enemy  was  encountered  imtil  at  dusk  on 
December  24th,  when  the  advance-guard  entered  the  sub- 
urbs of  Glasgow,  the  county-seat  of  Barren  County,  Ken- 
tucky. As  they  reached  one  comer  of  the  public  square 
several  companies  of  the  Second  Michigan  Cavalry,  with 
no  idea  that  Morgan's  men  were  in  that  part  of  the  world, 
rode  into  sight  just  across  the  square,  and  both  sides  fired 

179 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

simultaneously  and  at  close  range.  ^  One  Federal  was  killed 
and  two  wounded,  and  a  Confederate  captain  and  one  sol- 
dier were  mortally  and  one  lieutenant  slightly  woimded. 
Twenty  Michiganders  were  captured,  among  them  the  ad- 
jutant of  the  regiment,  whose  saddle,  a  beautifully  padded 
and  brass-moimted  McClellan  tree,  carried  me  for  many  a 
day  thereafter.  A  number  of  the  prisoners  had  Christmas 
turkeys  strapped  to  their  saddles — but  man  only  proposes. 
In  three  short  winter  days,  over  bad  roads  and  through  a 
rough  and  hilly  country,  we  had  made  ninety  miles,  and  the 
artillery  was  up. 

As  w^e  marched  out  of  Glasgow  early  Christmas  morning 
on  the  Mumfordsville  turnpike  Quirk's  Scouts  were  well  in 
advance,  and  about  ten  o'clock  we  were  joined  by  General 
Morgan,  who  rode  with  us  imtil  noon.  He  was  in  appear- 
ance the  ideal  of  the  beau  sabreur,  with  light-blue  or  gray 
eyes  and  a  strikingly  handsome  face  partly  concealed  by 
a  brownish  or  sandy  mustache  and  imperial. 

In  the  early  afternoon,  as  we  approached  a  small  settle- 
ment known  as  Bear  Wallow,  our  vidette  came  tearing  back 
at  full  speed,  shouting  as  he  drew  near,  "Yankees  thick  as 
hell  up  the  road!"  We  were  ordered  to  load  and  cap  our 
guns,  and  then  rode  briskly  forward  to  a  rise,  and  there,  some 
four  or  five  hundred  yards  in  front,  in  line  of  battle  which 
extended  on  either  side  of  and  across  the  pike,  were  some 
two  hundred  moimted  men  in  blue.^  There  was  another 
company  which  we  did  not  see  then,  but  saw  later,  to  our 
sorrow,  for  they  were  in  ambush  on  the  side  of  the  road 
along  which  our  Irish  captain  was  to  lead  us.     When  we 

'  Company  C,  Captain  Darrow  in  command,  supported  by  Companies  L, 
M,  and  H,  Second  Michigan  Cavalry,  page  148,  Official  Records,  vol.  xx. 

'^Official  Records,  vol.  xx,  part  i,  page  151.  Companies  of  the  Fourth  and 
Fifth  Indiana  Cavalry  under  Colonel  Isaac  P.  Grey. 

180 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

were  about  two  hundred  yards  from  the  Federal  Une,  and 
protected  by  a  depression  in  the  road  which  for  the  moment 
hid  us  from  view,  we  dismoimted  and  advanced  on  foot 
toward  the  enemy.  As  we  reached  the  top  of  the  rise  in  a 
lane  which  had  a  high  worm-fence  on  either  side,  the  Fed- 
erals gave  us  a  lively  volley,  which  we  returned  from  the 
fence-corners.  With  my  long  Austrian  rifle  I  took  a  dead 
rest  through  a  crack  in  the  fence  at  an  officer  who  was 
recklessly  riding  up  and  down  in  front  of  us,  but  missed  him. 
While  we  were  thus  engaged  with  the  troops  in  front  of  us 
another  detachment  (Company  C,  Fifth  Indiana),  which 
was  in  ambush  in  a  hollow  to  our  right,  charged  up  unex- 
pectedly to  within  a  few  yards  of  the  road  abreast  of  and  in 
the  rear  of  our  position,  and  fired  into  us  and  into  the  horse- 
holders  at  practically  muzzle  range. 

The  sudden  appearance  of  those  troops  and  the  fusillade 
from  the  flank  and  rear  as  well  as  from  the  front  stampeded 
the  horses  and  horse-holders,  all  of  whom  disappeared  down 
the  pike,  leaving  Captain  Quirk  and  his  fifty  men  with  no 
means  of  escape  except  by  climbing  the  westerly  fence  and 
running  for  a  dense  thicket  of  black-jacks  or  heavy  under- 
growth of  bushes,  some  two  hundred  yards  across  an  open 
field.  Several  of  our  men  had  been  wounded — none  serious- 
ly, however — but  no  one  was  killed  on  our  side.  Half  a  dozen 
of  our  company  took  shelter  in  a  small  farm-house  which 
stood  within  fifty  yards  of  where  the  fight  began,  and  these 
were  made  prisoners.  I  happened  to  climb  over  the  same 
panel  of  fence  with  our  captain,  whose  face  was  a  sight  with 
blood  from  two  bullet -woiinds  of  the  scalp.  He  was  not  in 
a  happy  frame  of  mind,  for  he  was  swearing  like  a  trooper 
at  the  horse-holders  for  running  away.  The  Yankees  pep- 
pered away  at  us  as  we  scampered  in  quick  time  across  the 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

space  which  lay  between  us  and  the  thicket  into  which  we 
dived  and  disappeared  from  view. 

At  this  juncture  the  leading  regiment  of  our  main  column 
which  had  caught  our  runaway  horses  came  up,  and  we 
remounted  and  joined  in  the  pursuit,  Tom  Quirk,  as  usual, 
out  in  front,  where  at  close  quarters  he  killed  a  Federal 
trooper  with  his  pistol.  Those  who  escaped  fled  in  the 
direction  of  Cave  City.^ 

On  the  further  march  to  Green  River,  which  was  crossed 
before  dark,  we  captured  a  huge  sutler's  wagon  which  the 
stampeded  owner  had  abandoned.  Its  contents  were  un- 
ceremoniously appropriated,  even  to  a  box  of  women's 
shoes,  which  the  men  gallantly  distributed  to  the  houses 
on  the  line  of  march.  That  night  we  camped  in  the  woods 
between  Hammondsville  and  Upton  Station,  on  the  Louis- 
ville &  Nashville  Railroad.  All  in  all,  it  was  the  liveliest 
Christmas  I  had  ever  had. 

In  the  early  morning  of  December  26th,  while  a  light, 
drizzly  rain  was  falling,  we  struck  the  railroad  at  Uptons, 
capturing  a  number  of  Union  soldiers  who  were  guarding 
the  depot  and  this  section  of  the  track.  Here  we  were 
again  joined  by  General  Morgan,  and  I  witnessed  a  very 
interesting  incident.  Attached  to  the  General's  staff  was 
a  telegraph  operator,  a  quick-witted  young  man  about 
twenty-five  years  old  named  Ellsworth,  better  known  by 
the  nickname  of  "Lightning."  On  a  former  occasion  hav- 
ing tapped  a  wire  and  interposed  his  instrument — which, 
being  a  pocket  affair,  did  not  always  give  the  most  perfect 

^  Colonel  Grey,  page  151,  vol.  xx,  Official  Records,  reports  the  Confederate 
loss  as  "nine  killed  and,  as  near  as  I  can  ascertain,  twenty- two  wounded  and 
five  prisoners."  The  last  item  is  correct,  but  none  was  killed  and  only  two 
wounded.    His  own  loss  he  reports  as  "one  killed  and  two  captured." 

182 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

satisfaction — its  wobbling  and  uncertain  tick  aroused  the 
suspicion  of  the  operator  he  was  calHng. 

"Who  are  you,  and  what's  the  matter  with  your  office?" 
came  over  the  wire,  and  quick  as  a  flash  Ellsworth  disarmed 
suspicion  by  answering  "O.  K.  Lightning,"  which  in  the 
language  of  telegraphy  meant,  "Go  ahead;  storm  and  light- 
ning here  interfering."  This  restored  confidence  at  the 
other  end,  and  Ellsworth  got  not  only  the  information  he 
and  his  general  wanted,  but  also  his  nickname. 

At  Uptons  one  of  the  men  climbed  a  telegraph-pole,  fas- 
tened two  strands  of  wire  to  the  line  on  each  side  of  the 
insulation,  and  to  these  Ellsworth  attached  his  instrument. 
Seated  on  a  cross-tie  within  a  few  feet  of  General  Morgan, 
I  heard  him  dictate  messages  to  be  sent  to  General  Boyle 
(who,  I  think,  was  military  governor  of  Kentucky) ,  in  Louis- 
ville, and  to  other  Federal  commanders  in  that  state,  mak- 
ing inquiries  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  Union  forces,  and 
at  the  same  time  telling  some  awful  stories  in  regard  to 
the  large  size  of  his  own  command  and  of  its  movements. 
Among  other  answers  received  was  one  that  a  train  bearing 
some  artillery  and  ammimition  had  left  Elizabethtown  on 
its  way  to  Mumfordsville.  Morgan  immediately  ordered 
Quirk  to  take  his  company  and  be  ready  to  obstruct  the 
track  as  soon  as  the  train  should  pass  the  point  indicated. 
Unfortunately,  the  wary  engineer  saw  us  in  time  to  reverse 
his  engine  and  escape  with  the  train  before  we  could  get 
behind  him.  The  two  pieces  of  artillery  were  on  a  freight- 
car  in  plain  view,  and  the  few  shots  we  fired  at  the  engineer 
were  poor  consolation  for  missing  a  valuable  capture. 

Heavy  cannonading  was  now  heard  in  the  direction  of 
Bacon  Creek  Bridge  stockade,  which,  after  a  gallant  re- 
sistance, was  reduced,  its  garrison  captured,  and  the  bridge 

183 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

destroyed.  We  took  up  our  march  toward  Nolin,  the  next 
station  north  of  Uptons,  where  there  was  another  bridge 
guarded  by  a  stockade.  This  garrison  surrendered  to 
General  Duke,  and  the  bridge  was  also  burned.  We  biv- 
ouacked that  night  a  few  miles  from  Elizabethtown,  which 
place,  garrisoned  by  eight  companies  of  the  Ninety-first 
Illinois  Regiment,  we  captured  after  a  slight  resistance  on 
the  next  day,  the  number  of  prisoners  being  six  hundred 
and  fifty-two  men  and  officers.^  A  number  of  brick  ware- 
houses near  the  railroad  station  had  been  loopholed  and 
otherwise  strengthened,  and  to  make  a  direct  assault 
upon  such  a  stronghold  would  have  been  folly.  Morgan 
made  a  rapid  disposition  of  his  forces,  completely  surround- 
ing the  town,  brought  up  his  artillery,  and  after  a  number  of 
shells  and  solid  shot  had  knocked  great  holes  in  the  houses 
the  garrison  surrendered.  That  night  we  slept  in  feather 
beds,  the  only  experience  of  this  kind  during  the  raid. 

While  parleying  for  a  surrender  the  colonel  of  this  Union 
regiment  marched  his  men  several  times  over  the  exposed 
crest  of  a  hill,  then  out  of  sight  and  around  again,  until  I 
was  convinced  he  had  several  thousand  in  his  command. 
Morgan  was  too  old  a  soldier,  however,  to  be  fooled  by  this 
ruse. 

On  the  28th  we  reached  the  two  great  trestles  on  the 
Louisville  &  Nashville  Railroad  at  Muldraugh's  Hill,  the 
destruction  of  which  was  the  most  important  object  of  the 
expedition.  They  were  each  from  sixty  to  seventy-five  feet 
high  and  about  seven  hundred  feet  in  length,  and  con- 
structed entirely  of  wooden  beams,  or  "bents,"  superim- 
posed  one   upon   another   until   the   required   height   was 

'  Official  Records,  vol.  Ixx,  part  i,  page  156.  The  garrisons  captured  at 
Bacon  Creek,  Nolin,  and  Uptons  belonged  to  this  regiment. 

1S4 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

reached.  They  were  deemed  of  such  importance  that  two 
strong  stockades  or  forts  had  been  built,  and  were  then 
garrisoned  by  the  Seventy-first  Indiana  and  Seventy- 
eighth  Illinois  regiments  of  infantry.  Morgan  assailed  both 
strongholds  at  the  same  time,  the  artillery  doing  most  of  the 
execution,  and  in  less  than  two  hours  the  two  garrisons  of 
seven  hundred  men  were  prisoners.^  This  was  the  second 
time  that  Morgan  had  captured  the  Indiana  regiment,  and 
he  directed  Ellsworth  to  telegraph  Governor  Morton  of  the 
Hoosier  State,  thanking  him  for  again  sending  the  regiment 
down,  and  suggesting  that  the  next  time  he  could  send  the 
oil-cloths  and  overcoats  without  the  men,  as  he  was  tired 
of  paroling  them.  They  were  armed  with  new  Enfield 
lilies,  one  of  the  most  effective  weapons  of  that  day. 

When  we  reached  the  stockade,  from  which  some  of  the 
enemy  had  escaped,  we  were  ordered  to  scour  the  woods  for 
fugitives.  About  two  or  three  hundred  yards  from  the  fort 
I  came  upon  a  stripling,  who,  hearing  some  one  approaching, 
bobbed  up  from  behind  the  trunk  of  a  fallen  tree  and  held 
up  one  hand  in  token  of  surrender.  As  no  one  else  was  near, 
I  took  his  gun — a  beautiful  new  Enfield  rifle — and  accouter- 
ments.  He  seemed  about  my  age,  and  I  noticed  tears 
running  down  over  his  "peach-down  cheeks."  His  crying 
quickly  aroused  my  sympathy,  and  I  tried  to  reassure  him  by 
sa3dng:  "Don't  be  afraid;  nobody's  going  to  harm  you; 
you'll  be  paroled  right  away  and  can  go  home."  At  this  he 
sobbed  out:  "I've  got  a  good  mother  at  home,  and  if  I  ever 
get  back  I'll  never  leave  her  again."  By  this  time  my  own 
feelings  were  getting  the  better  of  me,  and  when  he  mentioned 
his  mother  the  thought  of  my  own  so  overcame  me  that  I 
could  not  keep  the  tears  out  of  my  eyes  as  I  said  to  him: 

^  Official  Records,  vol.  Ixx,  part  i,  page  156. 
13  18s 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

"I  have  a  good  mother,  too,  and  don't  you  cry  any  more." 
All  this  occurred  as  we  were  walking  side  by  side  back  to 
the  stockade,  my  war-spirit  no  little  dampened  and  the 
pride  of  my  capture  about  lost  in  the  sympathy  for  the 
captive. 

After  burning  the  trestles,  which  made  the  most  magnifi- 
cent bonfire  I  ever  saw,  the  command  moved  to  Rolling 
Fork  River,  the  greater  portion  of  the  troops  crossing  that 
night  and  proceeding  toward  Bardstown. 

A  detachment  of  five  hundred  men  was  sent  under  Colonel 
Cluke  to  destroy  the  railroad  bridge  over  Rolling  Fork,  but 
before  the  stockade  could  be  battered  down  a  sharp  rear- 
guard action  with  a  strong  body  of  infantry,  cavalry,  and 
artillery,  three  thousand  strong,  under  Colonel  John  M. 
Harlan,  later  General,  and  still  later  a  Justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States,  compelled  his  withdrawal. 
When  Harlan's  men  came  up  with  us  Quirk's  company  had 
been  left  as  rear-guard,  and  took  part  in  a  sharp  engagement 
which  occurred  about  ten  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Decem- 
ber 29th.  General  Basil  W.  Duke,  having  recrossed  from 
the  north  side  of  the  river,  took  command  of  Cluke's  regi- 
ment and  Quirk's  Scouts,  which  now  formed  the  entire  rear- 
guard, and  led  an  attack  which  was  so  vigorous  that,  al- 
though he  had  but  a  handful  of  men.  Colonel  Harlan  hesi- 
tated to  press  his  great  advantage. 

At  this  crisis  Duke  was  wounded  while  with  our  com- 
pany. A  fragment  of  a  well-aimed  shrapnel  struck  him  on 
the  head  and  stunned  him.  The  same  shell  killed  two  of 
our  horses.  It  made  an  awful  noise  as  it  exploded.  Quirk 
and  others  of  the  scouts  hurried  to  the  fallen  man,  placed 
him  astride  the  pommel  of  the  saddle  in  which  our  captain 
was  seated,  and,  with  the  captain's  arm  around  the  limp 

186 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

body,  the  faithful  animal  was  guided  into  the  swollen 
stream.  Quirk  and  Duke  were  both  small  in  stature,  and 
the  captain's  horse,  a  powerful  bay,  carried  his  double  load 
safely  across.  Another  vicious  shell  burst  in  the  water  as 
we  were  floundering  across  and  splattered  us.  General 
Duke,  being  unconscious,  was  the  only  man  who  wasn't 
scared. 

Had  the  Federal  commander  pushed  his  advantage  in 
this  crisis,  we  must  have  lost  heavily.  As  it  was,  we  did 
not  lose  a  man,  as  our  other  wounded  rode  away  on  their 
horses.  Colonel  Harlan  reports  his  loss  as  three  killed  and 
one  wounded.  He  explained  his  cautious  advance  by  say- 
ing, "Morgan  had  a  larger  force  than  I." 

Safely  over  the  river,  a  carriage  was  impressed,  filled  with 
soft  bedding,  and  in  this  our  wounded  general  was  placed 
and  carried  along  with  the  command.^ 

Our  company  was  now  ordered  to  ride  through  the  com- 
mand and  take  the  lead,  which  we  did,  reaching  Bardstown 
at  dusk,  where  we  found  shelter  in  a  livery  stable  and  a 
sound  sleep  on  a  corn-pile.  Before  leaving,  between  day- 
light and  sunrise,  December  30th,  I  witnessed  the  looting 
of  one  of  the  largest  general  stores  in  Bardstown.  The 
proprietor  had  refused  to  accept  Confederate  money  for 
his  goods,  locked  his  store,  and  left  town.  The  men  who 
had  crowded  in  through  the  doors  they  had  battered  down 
found  great  difficulty  in  making  their  way  out  with  their 
plunder  through  a  surging  crowd  that  pressed  to  get  in 
before  everything  was  gone.  I  was  amused  at  one  trooper, 
v/ho  induced  others  to  let  him  out  by  holding  an  ax  in 
front  of  him,  cutting  edge  forward,  one  arm  clasping  a 
bundle  of  at  least  a  dozen  pairs  of  shoes  and  other  plunder, 

1  General  Basil  W.  Duke  still  survives  at  this  date,  1914. 
187 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

while  on  his  head  was  a  pyramid  of  eight  or  ten  soft  hats, 
one  on  top  of  the  other,  just  as  they  had  come  out  of  the 
packing-box.  Within  a  short  half-hour  nothing  but  the 
shelves  and  counters  were  left,  for  in  the  riot  of  an  uncon- 
trolled desire  to  plunder  these  men  took  piles  of  stuff  they 
could  not  carry  away  or  use. 

It  was  still  clear,  and  yet  colder  than  we  had  thus  far 
experienced,  as  we  marched  in  the  direction  of  Springfield. 
Our  spirits  were  high,  for  up  to  this  time  we  had  had  a 
picnic,  and  as  we  passed  a  home  of  the  Trappist  brother- 
hood some  ten  miles  up  the  road  Lieutenant  Frank  Brady 
entertained  us  by  singing  "Lorena,"  a  war-time  poem  which 
had  been  set  to  music  and  was  then  very  popular.  He  told 
us  that  the  author  of  the  poem  was  an  inmate  of  this 
Trappist  home.  If  this  were  true  and  the  self-imprisoned 
brother  heard  the  sw^eet  voice  of  the  cavalier  as  he  sang, 
"The  years  creep  slowly  by,  Lorena,"  what  sad  and  tender 
memories  it  must  have  awakened! 

I  recall  two  verses : 

The  years  creep  slowly  by,  Lorena; 

The  snow  is  on  the  grass  again; 
The  sun's  low  down  the  sky,  Lorena; 

The  frost  is  where  the  flowers  have  been. 

But  the  heart  beats  on  as  warmly  now 
As  when  the  summer  days  were  nigh: 

The  sun  can  never  dip  so  low 
Adown  affection's  cloudless  sky. 

I  may  not  be  doing  the  author  strict  justice  in  quoting 
from  memory.  There  was  one  other  line  that  told  of  the 
past  being  "in  the  eternal  past,"  upon  which  our  tenor 
dwelt  feelingly  as  he  sang  it.  All  of  which,  no  doubt,  will 
provoke  a  smile  from  the  pupils  of  Debussy,  Wagner,  et  id 

i88 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

omne;  yet  I  would  rather  hear  my  debonair  comrade  of 
"The  Scouts"  sing  that  war-time  song  again  as  we  began 
our  ride  of  thirty-two  miles  through  a  blizzard  than  listen 
to  the  so-called  music  of  the  "immortals"  at  our  beautiful 
Metropolitan  Opera  House. 

By  midday  the  clouds  had  gathered  and  a  chilling  rain 
set  in,  which,  as  the  thermometer  fell,  tiuned  into  sleet. 
Reaching  Springfield  in  the  gloom  of  the  evening  (Decem- 
ber 30th),  our  company  was  ordered  to  keep  on  to  the  sub- 
urbs of  Lebanon,  some  nine  miles  farther,  and  there  to  drive 
in  the  pickets  and  build  fires  for  as  long  a  line  on  that  side 
of  town  as  possible,  in  order  to  give  the  enemy  the  im- 
pression that  we  were  up  in  force  and  were  only  awaiting 
for  daylight  to  attack.  We  piled  fence-rails  and  made  fires 
until  late  at  night,  while  Morgan  was  leading  his  men 
south  along  a  narrow  and  not  much  used  country  road,  with 
Lebanon  some  two  miles  to  the  left.  Having  completed 
our  work,  we  caught  up  with  the  command,  and  acted  as 
rear-guard  throughout  the  remainder  of  that  awful  night. 
What  with  the  bitter,  penetrating  cold,  the  fatigue,  the 
overwhelming  desire  to  sleep,  so  difficult  to  overcome,  and, 
under  the  conditions  we  were  experiencing,  so  fatal  if  yielded 
to,  the  numerous  halts  to  get  the  artillery  out  of  bad  places, 
the  impenetrable  darkness,  and  the  inevitable  confusion 
which  attends  the  moving  of  troops  and  artillery  along  a 
narrow  country  road,  we  put  in  a  night  of  such  misery 
and  anxiety  and  suffering  that  no  man  who  experienced  it 
could  ever  forget. 

Toward  morning  it  became  our  chief  duty  to  keep  one 
another  awake.  All  through  the  night  the  sleet  pelted  us 
unmercifully  and  covered  our  coats  and  oil-cloths  with  a 
sheet  of  ice.     Time  and  again  we  dismounted  and,  hold- 

189 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ing  on  to  the  stirrup  leather,  trudged  on  through  the  slush 
and  ice  to  keep  from  freezing. 

Daylight  found  us  several  miles  south  of  Lebanon  and  the 
strong  Federal  command  concentrated  there  to  catch  us, 
but  we  kept  on  without  halting,  for  another  heavy  column 
was  reported  moving  out  from  Mumfordsville  and  Glasgow 
to  intercept  us  at  Columbia  or  Burkesville  before  we  could 
recross  the  Cumberland  River. 

About  midday  (December  31st)  we  stopped  for  an  hour 
to  feed  and  rest,  and  then  rode  on  to  Campbell ville,  where 
we  arrived  at  dark,  having  been  thirty-six  hours  in  the  sad- 
dle since  leaving  Bardstown.  Here  we  rested  eight  hours, 
and  early  on  New- Year's  day,  1863,  left  for  Columbia,  which 
we  reached  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  then  on  throughout 
the  whole  bitter -cold  night  without  stopping,  until  we 
passed  through  Burkesville  on  the  morning  of  January  2d, 
where  we  recrossed  the  Cumberland  and  were  safe  from  pur- 
suit or  interception.  Since  leaving  Bardstown  we  had,  with 
the  exception  of  nine  hours,  been  seventy-two  hours  in  the 
saddle.  I  doubt  if  any  troops  in  the  entire  history  of  the 
war  ever  passed  through  a  more  trying  ordeal  than  Mor- 
gan's cavalry  on  this  expedition.  Of  it  General  Basil  W. 
Duke  writes:  "It  is  common  to  hear  men  who  served  in 
Morgan's  command  through  all  its  career  of  trial  and  hard- 
ship refer  to  this  night  march  around  Lebanon  as  the  most 
trying  scene  of  their  entire  experience." 

It  was  not  so  much  the  bitter  cold  which  bothered  us 
as  the  slow  going  of  the  artillery.  As  long  as  we  could 
stick  to  the  turnpikes  we  moved  swiftly.  It  was  when 
driven  to  the  ill-kept  dirt  roads  that  our  troubles  began, 
and  in  the  pitch-darkness  of  a  stormy  winter's  night,  with 
the  most  severe  blizzard  raging  that  that  section  had  ever 

190 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

known,  they  multiplied.  For  the  entire  night  in  the  ride 
around  Lebanon  we  made  only  seven  miles.  Climbing 
Muldraugh's  Hill,  we  not  only  double-teamed  the  guns, 
but  long  lines  of  men  on  foot  pushed  and  pulled  to  help  the 
weary  horses.  Every  piece  was  brought  out  safely  over  the 
Cumberland.  We  now  took  it  leisurely  to  Livingston,  and 
then  to  Liberty,  Tennessee,  where  on  January  6,  1863,  we 
resumed  our  place  on  the  right  wing  of  Bragg's  army. 

This  was  Morgan's  most  successful  enterprise.  He  had 
destroyed  the  Louisville  &  Nashville  Railroad  from  Mimi- 
fordsville  to  Shepherdsville,  within  eighteen  miles  of  Louis- 
ville, captured  1,877  prisoners,  destroyed  a  vast  amount  of 
United  State  property,  and  had  lost  only  2  men  killed, 
24  wounded,  and  64  missing.  His  command  returned  well 
armed  as  a  result  of  its  captures,  and  better  mounted  than 
when  it  set  out.  The  country  along  the  line  of  march  had 
been  stripped  of  its  horses.  Every  man  in  my  company 
led  out  an  extra  mount. 

Moreover,  Morgan  had  demonstrated  again  that  genius 
of  leadership  which  divined  the  plans  and  movements  of  the 
enemy  in  time  to  elude  him.  He  had  still  further  won  the 
devotion  of  the  men  who  followed  his  fortunes  and  who 
believed  in  him  implicitly.  I  wonder  now  that  after  having 
succeeded  in  the  object  of  his  expedition,  which  culminated 
with  the  destruction  of  the  Muldraugh's  Hill  trestles,  he 
did  not  turn  on  Harlan  and  capture  or  destroy  him,  which 
he  could  easily  have  done.  He  could  then  at  leisure  have 
retraced  his  steps  to  Tennessee. 

All  things  considered,  we  had  moved  with  great  celerity. 
Despite  the  hindrance  of  artillery,  the  shortness  of  the 
winter  days,  and  the  rough  roads  in  the  hilly  country  before 
we  reached   Glasgow,   the   two  all-night   marches   around 

191 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Lebanon  and  from  Columbia  to  Burkesville,  we  had  marched 
two  hundred  and  seventy-one  miles  and  fought  ten  engage- 
ments. On  Christmas  Day  we  marched  thirty  miles,  not- 
withstanding an  hour's  delay  in  the  fight  at  Bear  Wallow, 
and  the  next  day  made  twenty-five  miles,  besides  capturing 
the  garrison  at  Uptons,  the  stockades  at  Bacon  Creek  and 
Nolin,  and  destroying  the  two  bridges  there. 

In  our  absence  the  great  battle  of  Murfreesboro  had  been 
fought.  The  Confederates  had  captured  some  thirty  pieces 
of  artillery  and  had  lost  four;  and,  although  Rosecrans  was 
finally  victorious  in  that  Bragg  retreated  a  day's  march  to 
Tullahoma,  he  had  hammered  his  opponent  so  hard  that  it 
took  him  from  January  ist  to  June  24th  before  he  was 
again  ready  to  advance.  In  this  enforced  delay  Morgan's 
destruction  of  the  Louisville  &  Nashville  Railroad  was  an 
important  factor. 

I  have  made  no  attempt  to  narrate  the  many  acts  of  per- 
sonal bravery  which  took  place  on  this  exciting  expedition, 
but  there  were  two  occurrences  of  such  an  extraordinary 
character  that  I  must  find  place  for  them.  The  first  of 
these  encounters  took  place  about  ten  o'clock  on  the  morn- 
ing of  December  31st,  as  the  rear-guard  was  crossing  Salt 
River,  some  five  or  six  miles  south  of  Lebanon.  Captain 
Alexander  Tribble,  Lieutenant  George  B.  Eastin,  and  a 
private  soldier  had  been  sent  on  a  detour  to  New  Market, 
four  or  five  miles  from  the  line  of  march,  to  secure  a  supply 
of  shoes  which  were  reported  stored  at  that  point.  As  they 
were  returning  to  overtake  the  command  they  were  set 
upon  and  pursued  by  a  squad  of  Federal  cavalry.  Being 
well  mounted,  the  three  kept  a  safe  distance  ahead  of  their 
pursuers.  Glancing  backward  in  a  long,  straight  stretch 
of  road,  they  observed  as  the  chase  proceeded  that  all  but 

192 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

three  of  the  enemy  had  checked  up,  and  they  determined 
at  the  first  favorable  place  to  ride  to  one  side  and  await 
their  approach  and  attack  them. 

The  place  selected  was  the  ford  at  Salt  River.  At  this 
point  Eastin  checked  his  horse  and  turned  sharply  to  the 
right,  concealing  himself  under  the  bank.  Tribble  con- 
tinued into  the  middle  of  the  stream,  which  here  was  about 
fifty  yards  wide,  and  stopped  his  horse  where  the  water 
was  about  two  feet  deep.  For  reasons  satisfactory  to  him- 
self the  private  soldier  kept  on,  leaving  the  two  officers  to 
confront  the  three  Federals,  who  were  now  in  sight  coming 
at  full  speed  toward  the  river  and  strung  out  from  fifty  to 
one  hundred  yards  apart.  The  leading  Federal  turned  out 
to  be  Colonel  Dennis  J.  Halisey,  of  the  Sixth  Kentucky- 
Cavalry.  As  he  came  near  Eastin  the  latter  fired  at  him 
with  his  six-shooter,  which  fire  Halisey  returned.  Both 
missed;  and,  as  Eastin  now  had  the  drop  on  his  adversary, 
Halisey  threw  up  his  hands  in  token  of  surrender.  As 
Eastin  approached  him,  having  lowered  his  weapon,  Hali- 
sey fired,  again  missing,  whereupon  Eastin  shot  Halisey 
through  the  head,  kilHng  him  instantly,  his  body  falling 
from  his  horse  into  the  river. 

While  this  combat  was  taking  place  the  next  in  order 
of  the  Federals  had  closed  with  Captain  Tribble.  These 
two  opened  fire  without  effect,  when  Tribble  spurred  his 
horse  alongside  of  his  adversary,  threw  his  arms  around  him, 
and  dragged  him  with  himself  from  the  saddle  into  the 
river.  Luckily,  Tribble  fell  on  top  and  strangled  his  enemy 
into  surrender.  At  this  moment  the  third  Union  trooper 
came  on  the  scene,  only  to  throw  up  his  hands  and  sur- 
render to  the  two  Confederates. 

The  second  incident  illustrates  another  phase  of  oiu"  war 

193 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL    " 

and  almost  justifies  the  term  "Civil,"  which  some  writers 
apply  to  it.^  Five  of  our  men  on  one  of  the  numerous  side 
expeditions,  or  scouts,  came  unexpectedly  face  to  face  and 
within  a  few  yards  of  about  the  same  number  of  Federal 
cavalry,  just  as  each  party  reached  the  crest  of  a  sharp  rise 
or  hill  in  the  road.  The  surprise  was  mutual,  the  situation 
serious.  The  men  were  experienced  enough  to  know  that 
on  such  equal  terms  neither  would  surrender  to  the  other 
without  a  hand-to-hand  fight  or  killing.  With  wonderful 
presence  of  mind  the  Union  officer  at  the  head  of  his  squad 
said,  "Don't  raise  your  guns,"  and  the  lieutenant  of  the 
other  side  quickly  responded,  "Don't  raise  yours,"  and  they 
rode  past  one  another,  saluting,  and  went  their  respective 
ways.  It  reads  like  a  romance,  but  it  is  true.  It  is  not  a 
bit  more  seemingly  improbable  than  an  incident  in  which 
I  took  part  in  another  campaign  later  on,  and  which  I  shall 
describe  elsewhere. 

Our  war  was  full  of  pathos,  and  the  tragedy  of  it  makes 
the  chivalric  and  pathetic  side  stand  out  in  bolder  relief. 
There  is  a  man  still  living  (19 14)  in  Chattanooga,  Tennessee, 
a  man  of  affairs,  who  captured  his  own  brother,  who  was 
seated  by  the  fireside  holding  his  mother's  hand.  The  two 
armies  were  near  each  other,  and  each  of  the  sons  had  ob- 
tained leave  for  the  night  to  pass  into  the  intervening 
neutral  zone  to  see  his  mother.  The  one  who  came  last  saw 
through  a  crack  the  other  seated  by  the  fire,  opened  the  door 
quickly,  gun  in  hand,  and  cried:  "Throw  up  your  hands; 
you're  my  prisoner!"     The  trio  chatted  till  late,  and  then 

1  This  occurrence  was  detailed  to  me  by  Hugh  Garvin  of  our  command. 
He  was  a  true  soldier,  always  where  he  ought  to  have  been,  and  entirely  re- 
liable in  every  respect.  After  the  war  he  became  a  physician  at  Cave  City, 
Kentucky,  and  died  there  a  few  years  ago,  beloved  and  respected  by  all. 

194 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

the  prisoner  went  with  his  captor  into  the  Union  lines.  It 
was  largely  a  family  affair.  When  I  was  captured  I  was 
guarded  the  first  night  by  men  from  a  company  in  the 
Tenth  Illinois  Infantry,  of  which  my  first  cousin,  Thomas 
Smith,  of  Morgan  County,  was  captain. 

In  February,  leading  my  "captured"  horse,  I  started  on 
the  long  ride  to  my  home.  It  rained  almost  incessantly  for 
two  days  and  nights,  until  every  stream  became  a  torrent, 
and  some  of  them  difficult  and  not  altogether  safe,  especially 
while  trying  to  cross  with  two  animals.  When  I  reached 
Paint  Rock  River  it  had  overflowed  its  banks;  and,  the 
Tennessee  being  full,  the  back-water  had  flooded  the  low- 
lands, until  where  I  had  to  cross  it  was  over  a  mile  from 
shore  to  shore.  The  hospitable  citizen  who  gave  me  shelter 
for  the  night  informed  me  that  the  ferryman  who  lived  on 
the  far  side  had  tied  up  his  boat  and  quit,  as  the  general 
overflow  had  put  an  end  to  all  travel. 

One  of  the  great  advantages  of  being  raised  in  the  back- 
woods is  that  every  boy  and  man  learns  of  necessity  the  use 
of  tools  and  gets  in  the  habit  of  overcoming  difficulties. 
My  good  host  said  I  could  stay  with  him  till  the  river  fell. 
He  thought  in  four  or  five  days  the  road  might  be  open. 
Early  next  morning  another  traveler  on  horseback  came  on 
the  scene.  He  and  I  formed  a  partnership,  borrowed  an 
ax  and  an  auger,  cut  three  good  ash  logs  of  proper  length, 
pinned  them  together  into  a  fairly  respectable  raft,  and 
with  one  pole  and  a  bit  of  plank  for  a  paddle  we  started  on 
a  voyage  of  discovery.  It  was  half  a  mile  to  the  river  proper, 
and  the  rails  of  the  corduroy  road-bed  had  floated  and 
made  navigation  difficult,  but  we  were  yet  in  dead-water 
and  could  take  our  time. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  river's  edge  we  found  the  current 

195 


\   WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

booming  swiftly  toward  the  Tennessee,  several  miles  farther 
on.  Away  on  the  other  side,  a  half-mile  across,  we  could 
see  the  coveted  ferryboat  where  the  retiring  ferryman  had 
tied  it  when  he  suspended  operations.  The  opening  of  the 
roadway  on  that  side  was  narrow — not  over  twenty  feet — 
and  if  in  crossing  we  failed  to  hit  it  exactly  right  we  would 
have  to  continue  our  journey  indefinitely  down-stream  and 
take  our  chances  of  finding  a  landing-place  somewhere 
down  on  the  Tennessee;  so  we  poled  our  raft  through  the 
still  water  far  enough  up-stream  to  give  us  good  leeway, 
paddled  across  the  swift  current,  and  hit  the  opening  in 
great  style.  I  heard  of  one  colored  brother  who  indis- 
creetly inquired  of  another,  "What  wuz  de  price  o'  dem  new 
britches  what  you  got  on?"  and  the  reply  was.  "How'd  I 
know.  De  shopkeeper  wasn't  dar."  My  partner  and  I 
never  asked  the  price  of  this  ferriage.  We  took  the  boat, 
pulled  back  for  our  three  horses,  ferried  ourselves  across, 
and  went  our  way  rejoicing.  That  night  I  reported  as 
present  and  accounted  for  to  my  anxious  mother  and  father, 
and  they  sat  up  to  a  late  hour  listening  to  my  story  of  how 
I  had  "seen  the  army." 


XV 

FOURTH  ALABAMA  CAVALRY 

My  brief  partisan  -  ranger  service  as  a  "bushwhacker," 
and  the  trying  and  exciting  experience  as  an  "independent" 
with  Morgan's  cavalry,  in  1862  and  early  in  1863,  only 
whetted  the  desire  to  engage  regularly  in  the  active  business 
of  the  war.  In  February  I  had  asked  Captain  Tom  Quirk 
at  Liberty,  Tennessee,  where  "the  Scouts"  were  stationed 
after  the  Christmas  raid  was  over,  if  I  might  not  join  his 
company.  Evidently,  Lieutenant  Frank  Brady,  who  felt 
responsible  for  my  leaving  home  and  going  on  the  great  ride 
through  Kentucky,  had  talked  my  case  over  with  the  cap- 
tain and  had  advised  him  not  to  let  me  enlist,  as  I  was 
under  age,  and  he  thought  I  ought  to  report  to  my  parents. 
Quirk  frankly  told  me  he  would  like  to  keep  me  with  his 
company,  but  on  account  of  my  size  and  age  he  didn't 
think  it  would  be  best,  and  asked  me  to  go  home,  talk  it 
over  with  my  parents,  and,  later  on,  if  they  consented  and 
I  still  cared  to  come  to  him,  he  woiild  take  me. 

I  was  greatly  disappointed  at  this,  for  I  had  fallen  in  love 
with  my  Kentucky  comrades,  especially  with  the  Scouts,  for 
they  were  as  gallant  a  lot  of  horsemen  as  ever  sat  in  the 
saddle.  They  had  volunteered  early  in  the  war,  and  with 
John  H.  Morgan  and  Basil  W.  Duke  had  done  some  won- 
derful work  and  won  undying  fame  as  ' '  Morgan's  old  squad- 
ron."    When  I  joined  them  at  Alexandria  and  asked  to  be 

197 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

allowed  to  go  on  the  raid  they  never  bothered  about  asking 
me  what  my  full  name  was.  Captain  Quirk  hailed  me  as 
"Little  Johnny,"  and  after  that  I  never  had  any  other  name 
while  with  Morgan's  men. 

After  the  final  consultation  with  my  parents  the  conclu- 
sion was  that  I  had  better  join  one  of  the  cavalry  compa- 
nies from  my  native  county  already  in  service  in  a  famous 
regiment,  the  Fourth  Alabama,  known  also  as  "Russell's 
regiment."  ^  So  early  in  April  I  was  regularly  enrolled 
as  a  private  in  Company  I,  joining  the  command  then  do- 
ing outpost  duty  near  Eagleville,  on  the  turnpike  leading 
north  from  Shelbyville,  Tennessee,  to  Triune  and  Nashville. 
Russell's  Fourth  Alabama  was  justly  ranked  as  one  of  the 
best  cavalry  regiments  in  the  service.  In  its  organization 
a  valuable  military  lesson  may  be  learned — namely,  the 
sandwiching  of  raw  and  untrained  soldiers  between  true 
and  tried  veterans.  The  negroes  had  a  saying  that  "It 
takes  an  old  dog  to  teach  a  pup  how  to  fight,"  Among  the 
first  troops  to  go  to  the  front  from  Alabama  were  four 
mounted  companies,  and  these  were  fortunate  enough  to  be 
included  in  a  battalion  of  cavalry  under  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Nathan  Bedford  Forrest.  Anybody  who  knows  anything 
about  the  Civil  War  knows  what  that  meant.  He  led  them, 
and  they  followed  "close  up"  at  Sacramento  and  at  Fort 
Henry. 

At  Fort  Donelson,  when  everybody  else  was  whipped  and 
cowed  and  wanted  to  surrender,  Forrest  told  the  command- 
ing officers  not  to  include  him  and  his  men  in  the  cartel,  as 
he  had  no  notion  of  surrendering.  Napoleon  said  that  the 
supreme  test  of  courage  was  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

'  In  distinction  from  another  regiment  under  General  Roddy,  which  is 
sometimes  mentioned  in  the  reports  as  the  Fourth  Alabama  Cavalry. 

198 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

Near  this  hour  on  that  cold,  cheerless,  and  desolate  Feb- 
ruary morning  the  grim  fighter  roused  his  tired  and  sleepy 
troopers  from  under  their  snow-covered  blankets,  called  them 
about  him,  and  said:  "Men,  they  are  going  to  surrender 
this  fort  and  this  army  at  daybreak.  I  am  going  out.  The 
way  is  open.  Get  on  your  horses."  They  rode  safely 
away  without  seeing  one  solitary  Federal  soldier.  Every 
man  surrendered  there,  who  could  have  walked  four  miles 
between  four  and  six  o'clock  a.m.,  could  have  come  away 
and  left  General  Grant  the  empty  triumph  of  a  "last  year's 
bird's  nest." 

These  same  men  were  with  him  at  Shiloh,  where  they 
rode  squarely  in  among  Sherman's  infantry,  and  for  at 
least  once  diiring  our  four  years'  war  men  on  foot  were  jab- 
bing bayonets  at  men  on  horseback.  When  their  twelve 
months'  enlistment  had  expired  they  re-enlisted  "for  the 
war,"  and  to  these  four  old  companies  as  a  nucleus  were 
added  six  new  companies  of  mounted  troops,  all  from  Ala- 
bama, and  the  new  regiment  was  christened  Russell's 
Fourth  Alabama  in  honor  of  the  brave,  grim  doctor  who 
laid  aside  the  spatula  and  scalpel  for  the  sword  and  six- 
shooter. 

Most  of  these  recent  volunteers  made  excellent  soldiers, 
and  with  the  example  and  prestige  of  the  ' '  old  Forresters ' ' 
they  became  a  splendid  body  of  fighters.  Within  two 
months  of  their  organization  two  of  the  new  compa- 
nies, under  the  leadership  of  the  daring  Captain  Frank 
Gurley,  rode  over  and  captured  a  section  of  artillery  at 
Lexington,  Tennessee,  the  orderly  sergeant  of  one  company 
being  blown  bodily  from  his  horse  at  the  cannon's  mouth. 
They  captured  in  addition  the  redoubtable  Colonel  Robert 
G.  Ingersoll  and  troops  of  the  Eleventh  Illinois,  Second 

199 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

West  Tennessee,  and  Fifth  Ohio  Cavalry,  and  were  bul- 
letined by  General  Forrest  for  "exceptional  gallantry"  on 
this  and  other  occasions.  One  of  the  proudest  moments  of 
my  life  as  a  soldier  was  when,  at  Anderson's  Cross  Roads, 
on  October  2,  1863,  as  a  brigade  which  had  been  sent  to 
the  front  to  beat  off  a  train-guard  came  back  beaten  and 
demoralized,  General  Wheeler  galloped  up  to  our  com- 
mander and  said,  "Colonel  Russell,  you  will  have  to  go  in 
with  the  Fourth  Alabama."  Our  grim  old  colonel  came 
nearer  smiling  than  I  ever  saw  him  as  he  saluted  and  gave 
the  order,  *  *  Cap  your  guns,  men !' '  We  made  short  work  of  it. 
The  men  and  horses  were  in  generally  good  condition 
when  I  joined  the  company,  although  the  equipment  was 
far  from  sufficient.  An  official  inspection  had  just  been 
made,  and  the  report  of  March  6,  1863,  shows  that  out  of 
seven  hundred  men  present  for  duty  in  this  regiment  four 
hundred  were  as  yet  without  arms.^  Nothing  could  better 
demonstrate  the  difficulties  with  which  the  South  was  con- 
tending. The  four  old  companies  were  splendidly  equipped 
with  guns  and  army  pistols  which  they  had  captured.  The 
others  carried  long  muzzle  -  loading  Austrian  or  Belgian 
rifles,  a  clumsy  weapon  for  mounted  men.  Some  had 
double-barreled  shotguns,  a  very  effective  weapon  at  close 
quarters — seventy-five  yards  or  less.  Army  pistols  were 
scarce,  and  no  sabres  were  carried.  I  furnished  myself  with 
a  captured  Burnside  carbine,  for  which  I  paid  fifty  dollars, 
and  an  army  six-shooter,  and  as  far  as  my  mount  was  con- 
cerned there  was  not  in  all  the  seven  hundred  a  horse  more 
beautiful,  intelligent,  or  swifter  of  foot  than  my  thorough- 
bred Fanny.  The  hard  campaign  with  Morgan  had  left 
her  in  the  best  of  condition  for  service. 

*  Official  Records,  series  I,  23,  part  2,  p.  663 
200 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

The  only  tent  in  our  regiment  belonged  to  Colonel  Russell. 
The  rest  of  us  lived  out  of  doors,  with  the  dome  of  heaven 
for  our  covering.  When  night  came  on  we  slept  on  the 
ground,  wherever  we  happened  to  be,  provided  we  were  not 
on  picket  or  doing  guard  duty.  When  it  rained,  if  in  bivouac 
we  leaned  two  rails  or  poles  against  a  tree  or  a  fence-panel, 
laid  an  oil-cloth  over  these,  spread  another  oil-cloth  on 
leaves  or  bushes,  then  a  saddle-blanket ;  and  then,  with  our 
saddles  for  pillows,  two  of  us  went  to  bed  with  an  extra 
blanket  for  cover.  When  the  rainfall  was  extraordinarily 
heavy,  in  cloudburst  fashion,  as  occasionally  happened, 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  sit  or  stand  up  and  take  it  good- 
humoredly  when  we  could,  or  the  other  way  when  patience 
and  patriotism  succumbed  for  the  time  being  to  the  suffer- 
ing which  cold  and  loss  of  sleep  entailed. 

I  recall  one  night,  when  a  young  deluge  was  let  down  on 
us,  with  several  inches  of  water  on  the  ground,  I  placed  two 
flat  rails  across  the  angle  of  a  worm-fence,  and,  protected 
by  a  waterproof  blanket,  slept  the  sleep  of  the  weary,  un- 
mindful of  the  heavy  downpour.  When  day  broke,  as  far 
as  one  could  see  the  top  of  the  fence  on  both  sides  of  the 
pike  was  occupied  by  troopers  in  every  possible  attitude  of 
discomfort.  We  didn't  mind  so  much  the  rains  of  summer- 
time; but  the  winter  rains,  the  sleet,  the  snow,  and  the 
biting  wind  made  us  think  of  home  and  wish  "the  cruel 
war  was  over."  One  great  misfortune  was  that  most  of  the 
men  did  not  have  oil-cloths  or  blankets  enough  to  protect 
them  properly,  and  now,  as  I  look  back  on  all  this  physical 
discomfort  and  misery,  to  which  add  short  rations  of  food — 
and  most  of  the  time  the  little  we  got  was  bad — I  marvel  that 
our  army  stood  up  as  long  as  it  did.  The  truth  is  the  men 
were  in  dead  earnest  to  win  out  for  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

14  20I 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

We  had  what  by  courtesy  was  called  a  commissary, 
took  with  grateful  appreciation  all  it  offered,  and  made  up 
the  deficit  by  foraging.  Now,  foraging  is  a  science  and  an 
art  which  can  only  be  acquired  by  experience.  I  messed  with 
the  captain  and  the  first  lieutenant  of  my  company.  Our 
utensils  and  houseliseping  outfit  consisted  of  a  small  frying- 
pan,  a  skillet,  and  one  canteen  which  held  three  pints.  We 
fried  our  bacon  or  other  meat  in  one  and  mixed  the  meal 
dough  and  cooked  it  into  bread  in  the  other.  At  meal- 
time we  drank  in  regular  order  from  the  canteen.  Custom 
required  that  the  last  drinker  should  dry  off  the  canteen's 
mouth  before  passing  it.  The  nearest  approach  to  a  napkin 
was  a  handkerchief,  and  when  this  had  not  been  recently 
laundered  the  palm  of  the  hand  sufficed. 

Buttermilk  was  the  one  great  luxury  of  the  mess,  and  as 
I  was  so  youthful  and  small,  and  in  appearance  so  generally 
suggestive  of  helplessness  and  hunger,  the  captain  and  the 
Keutenant  detailed  me  with  great  regularity  to  scour  the  sur- 
rounding territory  for  this  essential.  As  a  rule  I  rarely  came 
in  with  an  empty  canteen.  The  Confederate  cavalry  sub- 
sisted chiefly  on  corn — as  roasting-ears  when  green  or  half 
ripe,  and  parched,  or  as  hominy,  when  ripe.  Corn-bread 
was  the  great  standby.  Wheat  flour  we  rarely  saw,  and 
we  used  to  say  the  infantry  got  it  all.  Coffee  and  tea  were 
unknown,  and  sugar  was  as  scarce  as  flour. 

Dr.  Will  Fennell  was  the  captain  of  Company  I,  and  it  was 
chiefly  on  his  account  that  I  had  joined  it.  He  had  studied 
medicine,  and  was  just  commencing  practice  when  the  war 
broke  out.  He  volunteered  as  assistant  surgeon  in  a  regiment 
in  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia.  At  the  battle  of  Seven 
Pines,  as  the  wounded  were  not  coming  in  fast  enough  to  suit 
him,  he  had  borrowed  a  gun  and  gone  into  the  fight  just 

202 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  time  to  be  severely  wounded.  During  his  convalescence 
at  home  he  amused  himself  by  drumming  up  a  company  of 
volunteers  for  the  cavalry  service,  and,  having  been  made 
captain,  he  gave  up  his  place  as  surgeon.  He  was  a  fine 
type  of  man,  sober,  fearless,  reliable,  and  withal  just  a  little 
bit  too  quick-tempered.  He  and  the  second  lieutenant, 
Sam  Browning,  would  have  come  to  blows  on  one  occasion 
if  we  privates  had  not  by  expostulation  and  interference 
prevented  it.  Captain  Fennell  ordered  Browning  to  per- 
form some  duty.  The  latter  resented  the  tone  and  bear- 
ing of  his  superior,  saying,  "Captain  Fennell,  you  wouldn't 
dare  to  speak  to  me  that  way  if  you  didn't  have  those  bars 
on  your  collar."  Off  went  the  captain's  coat,  and  as  he 
was  squaring  for  action  he  remarked,  "Lieutenant,  the  bars 
are  off."  It  was  a  matter  of  great  regret  to  me  that  on 
account  of  ill  health  he  was  compelled  to  leave  the  service. 

Between  the  Federal  picket-line  and  ours,  extending  the 
fifteen  or  twenty  miles  of  front  along  which  the  cavalry  of 
either  army  was  strung  out,  was  a  strip  of  country  about 
four  miles  in  width  known  as  the  neutral  zone.  An  impor- 
tant part  of  the  duty  to  which  I  was  assigned  was  to  make 
frequent  excursions  across  this  zone  to  obtain  all  possible 
information  from  the  citizens  living  near  the  Union  lines, 
especially  from  those  who  had  access  to  their  encampments. 
Practically  all  residents  of  this  section  of  middle  Tennessee 
were  intensely  Southern  in  sympathy. 

About  half  a  mile  north  of  Little  Harpeth  River,  where 
the  pike  to  Triune  crosses,  east  of  the  road  some  four  hun- 
dred yards  stood  a  substantial  brick  farm-house.  A  car- 
riageway led  from  the  gate  on  the  pike  straight  to  the  front 
yard  through  a  beautiful  field  then  green  with  clover. 
From  a  rise  of  ground  in  the  turnpike,  two  hundred  yards 

203 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

farther  north  of  this  gate,  could  be  seen  the  Federal  videttes 
as  they  sat  on  their  horses.  I  visited  at  this  house  a  num- 
ber of  times  and  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  family.  They 
were  in  good  circumstances.  The  Federals  being  so  near, 
naturally  they  also  found  their  way  there  frequently.  It 
was  only  half  a  mile  from  their  outpost,  and  fully  three  miles 
to  ours.  The  male  members  of  the  household  were  away 
in  our  army.  The  mother  and  the  two  young  girls,  about 
fourteen  and  sixteen  years  old,  were  all  of  the  family  I  can 
recall.^  The  oldest  girl  told  me  that  Colonel  Brownlow,  of 
the  First  Tennessee  Union  Cavalry,  or  some  of  his  officers 
rode  out  nearly  every  afternoon.  They  were  polite  enough 
"to  keep  on  the  good  side  of  the  Yankees,"  and  equally 
loyal  to  me;  for  she  gave  me  all  the  Northern  newspapers 
she  could  obtain  from  them,  and  any  other  information. 
I  usually  started  on  these  excursions  before  daylight,  and 
on  Fanny  it  did  not  take  long  to  go  three  or  four  miles  on 
a  good  Tennessee  pike.  The  Louisville  Journal  I  remember 
as  one  of  the  important  papers  we  were  glad  to  get  from 
that  side  of  the  line. 

Realizing  that  this  could  not  go  on  indefinitely  without 
discovery,  I  took  every  precaution  to  prevent  surprise. 
On  the  morning  of  my  last  visit  I  had  with  me  two  very 
reliable  men,  and  when  we  reached  the  big  gate  I  left  it 
open  and  told  them  to  ride  to  the  rise  in  the  road  in  sight 
of  the  pickets,  and  if  the  Yankees  charged  them  to  yell  a 
warning  to  me,  save  themselves  by  a  run  for  camp,  and  I 
would  escape  by  a  back  way  across  the  fields.  The  one 
embarrassing  feature  of  a  run  down  the  pike  was  the  river, 

^  The  younger  of  these  daughters  was  still  living  in  this  house  in  1907, 
wife  of  a  Mr.  Wonunack,  who,  I  think,  is  a  preacher.  He  wrote  me  that  the 
elder  one,  my  little  friend,  had  died  many  years  ago. 

204 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

half  a  mile  away,  which,  while  not  wide,  was  deep  enough 
to  stop  the  full  speed  of  a  horse  or  cause  him  to  fall  if  not 
checked  up.  With  a  good  start,  however,  this  could  be 
crossed  before  the  pursuers  were  close  enough  to  shoot 
with  accuracy,  and  it  would  impede  them  as  well. 

When  about  two-thirds  of  the  way  from  the  gate  to  the 
house,  I  was  startled  to  see  my  little  friend  standing  in 
the  hall  and  well  back  from  the  door,  where  she  could  not 
be  seen  from  the  outside,  waving  her  hand,  and  evidently 
signaling  me  to  turn  back,  as  there  was  danger.  I  wheeled 
at  once  and  rode  at  full  speed  to  rejoin  my  two  comrades. 
As  I  neared  them  they  threw  up  their  guns  and  shouted 
to  me:  "Here  they  come!"  I  exclaimed  quickly,  "Don't 
shoot!"  and  in  another  instant  I  was  on  the  rise  where  they 
were  stationed  and  could  see  coming  toward  us,  but  as  yet 
about  four  hundred  yards  away,  a  squadron  of  from  fifteen 
to  twenty  Union  troopers.  Naturally,  our  first  thought  was 
to  run  full  tilt  for  camp,  but  the  river  just  in  our  rear  made 
that  a  dangerous  experiment,  to  be  avoided  if  possible; 
and  so  we  concluded  to  try  to  "bluff  them  off,"  and  the 
three  of  us  lined  up  across  the  pike,  lowered  our  guns,  and  sat 
stock-still.  They  came  on  in  a  walk  until  they  had  reached 
a  slight  elevation  about  three  hundred  yards  from  us,  where 
they  halted  in  a  line  that  stretched  the  fiill  width  of  the 
roadway. 

I  saw  one  of  them  raise  his  field-glasses,  and  while  he  still 
held  them  to  his  eyes  every  second  trooper  turned  back  and 
disappeared  behind  the  hill.  They  evidently  suspected  us 
of  trying  to  lead  them  into  an  ambuscade;  so  we  waved  otir 
hats  and,  shouting,  "Come  on,  boys!"  tiurned  and  rode  leis- 
urely away,  keeping  our  eyes  on  them  until  we  were  out 
of  sight  below  the  crest  of  the  hill.     As  yet  they  had  not 

205 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

budged,  but  as  soon  as  we  could  no  longer  be  seen  we  put 
the  spurs  to  our  horses  and  went  at  full  speed  toward  the 
river,  across  which  we  floundered  without  accident  and 
made  our  way  safely  to  our  lines.  Had  they  rushed  us 
from  the  start  our  situation  would  have  been  precarious 
in  the  extreme.  I  need  scarcely  add  that  this  was  my  last 
visit  to  this  house. 

Scouting  and  picket  duty,  foraging  for  one's  self  and 
horse,  and  attending  drills  on  alternate  days  made  a  busy 
life  of  it.  Our  rule  was  four  consecutive  hours  on  post,  and 
at  night  it  was  at  times  almost  impossible  to  stay  awake, 
especially  toward  morning,  when  stationed  at  some  lonesome 
spot  where  not  a  sound  could  oe  heard  except  the  hoot  or 
screech  of  the  owls,  the  cry  of  a  whippoorwill,  or  the  chirp 
of  the  grasshoppers  or  katydids.  It  was  against  orders  to 
dismount,  but  I  remember  on  one  occasion  the  only  way  I 
could  keep  from  going  to  sleep  was  to  mount  and  dismount 
for  minutes  at  a  time,  and  to  repeat  this  performance  until 
fully  aroused. 

Just  at  daylight  on  May  5,  1863,  the  outpost  picket  fired 
his  gun,  and,  closely  pursued  by  six  Federal  cavalrymen, 
came  at  full  speed  to  the  reserve.  Lieutenant  John  Gibson, 
officer  of  the  guard,  followed  by  a  man  named  Julian, 
mounted  at  once  and  raced  in  the  direction  of  the  enemy, 
who  now  faced  about  and  started  as  fast  as  their  horses 
could  carry  them  back  toward  Triune.  A  dozen  of  us  threw 
our  saddles  on  and  joined  in  the  chase.  One  of  the  Yankee 
horses  went  down,  and  a  comrade  checked  his  horse,  took 
the  unseated  man  up  behind  him,  and  tried  to  escape.  The 
double  weight  told  on  the  animal,  and,  seeing  they  were 
being  overhauled,  the  two  dismounted,  knelt  in  the  road, 
and  fired  their  carbines  at  Gibson,  now  two  hundred  yards 

206 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  advance  of  Julian,  who  was  about  the  same  distance 
ahead  of  the  others  of  the  reserve.  One  of  the  balls  struck 
the  big  sorrel  just  above  the  eye  and  crashed  into  his  brain, 
killing  him  instantly.  As  he  was  going  at  a  full  run,  some 
idea  of  the  jolt  the  plucky  lieutenant  received  when  he 
struck  the  hard  road-bed  may  be  imagined.  Stunned  as  he 
was,  he  staggered  to  his  feet,  revolver  in  hand,  and  advanced 
on  the  two  desperate  Federals,  who,  seeing  Julian  approach- 
ing and  the  guard  right  up,  surrendered  to  Gibson.  The 
other  four  made  good  their  escape. 

Had  these  men  been  caught  two  weeks  later  they  would 
in  all  likelihood  have  fared  badly,  for  an  important  incident 
occurred  at  this  time  which  embittered  the  Fourth  Alabama 
against  the  First  Tennessee  (Union) .  A  corn-detail  sent  into 
the  neutral  zone  was  set  upon  by  a  scouting  party  of  the 
enemy  and  fled  after  two  of  the  detail  had  been  wounded. 
The  citizens  who  owned  the  corn  testified  that  Brownlow's 
troopers  had  ruthlessly  put  both  the  wounded  men  to  death 
as  they  were  lying  helpless  on  the  ground.  The  evidence 
was  so  convincing  that  reprisals  were  determined  upon.  I 
happened  to  be  one  of  the  detachment  sent  out  on  this 
expedition,  and  we  had  gone  ahead  of  the  corn-detail  to  guard 
it  from  attack.  The  Federals  had  evidently  come  out  during 
the  night,  and  were  lying  in  wait  for  the  corn-carriers,  and 
in  this  way  they  were  not  discovered  by  us.  As  soon  as  the 
firing  began  we  raced  in  that  direction  and  drove  the  as- 
sailants away.  In  their  precipitate  retreat  one  was  thrown 
from  his  horse  and  escaped  into  the  dense  cedar  brakes  or 
thickets  which  are  numerous  in  this  section  and  can  only 
be  traversed  by  a  man  on  foot.  As  Fanny  was  the  fastest 
animal  in  our  scouting  party,  I  happened  to  get  ahead  and 
capture  the  horse  and  outfit.     Within  a  week  two  of  this 

207 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

command  were  caught  and  shot.  The  men  comprising  this 
regiment  were  almost  wholly  from  the  mountain  country 
of  east  Tennessee,  where  the  people  were  about  equally 
divided  in  their  political  affiliations.  They  were  a  hardy 
lot,  and  neither  they  nor  the  men  from  the  mountain  region 
just  over  the  line  in  northern  Alabama  took  the  trouble  to 
refer  their  grievances  to  the  proper  authorities  for  settle- 
ment, as  the  following  dispatch  may  testify: 

Headquarters  First  Tennessee  Cavalry, 
Sparta,  Ten.n.,  December  ist,  j86j. 

Drove  the  enemy  eight  miles,  kiUing  nine  and  wounding  between  fifteen 
and  twenty.     I  would  take  no  prisoners, 

James  P.  Brownlow, 
Lieutenant-Colonel,  Commanding} 

By  a  singular  coincidence  a  man  who  at  this  time  com- 
manded a  company  in  the  First  Tennessee  Cavalry  (Union) 
became  one  of  my  most  devoted  personal  friends.  Long 
after  the  war  he  came  as  a  patient  and  remained  in  my 
private  hospital  for  several  weeks.  I  knew  nothing  of  his 
war  record  until  he  was  just  far  enough  under  the  influence 
of  the  anesthetic,  as  I  was  proceeding  to  operate  on  him, 
to  lose  control  of  his  tongue.  He  then  said,  "Dr.  Wyeth, 
this  isn't  the  first  time  you  and  I  have  seen  each  other," 
and  to  quiet  him  I  said:  "That's  all  right.  Captain.  Just 
keep  quiet  and  go  to  sleep."  But  the  spell  was  on  him,  the 
control  was  gone,  and  the  memory  cells  of  those  a.wi\il  ex- 
periences came  into  action  as  he  continued:  "Yes;  I  know 
it's  all  right,  and  I  trust  you  with  my  Hfe;   but  there  was  a 

'  Official  Records  of  the  Union  and  Confederate  Armies,  series'  I,  vol.  xxxi, 
part  I,  p.  591. 

Colonel  Brownlow  was  a  son  of  the  "Parson"  Brownlow  who  was  Governor 
of  Tennessee  at  one  time,  and  in  reconstruction  days  was  one  of  the  most 
implacable  enemies  the  South  ever  had. 

208 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

time,  when  you  were  in  Russell's  regiment  and  I  was  in 
Brownlow's,  when  we  wouldn't  have  been  talking  to  each 
other  this  way."  At  this  I  held  up  the  ether  for  a  minute 
in  order  to  assure  him  as  emphatically  as  I  was  able  that 
old  scores  were  forgotten  and  forgiven  and  that  his  vote 
of  confidence  had  touched  me  deeply.^ 

^  Captain  E.  O.  Tate  was  then  a  post-office  inspector.  He  died  at  Morris- 
town,  Tennessee,  about  1900.  To  the  day  of  his  death,  long  after  this  in- 
cident, he  never  missed  an  opportunity  to  demonstrate  his  gratitude  and 
friendship. 


XVI 

COVERING  THE  RETREAT  FROM  TULLAHOMA — THE  27TH  OF 

JUNE,  1863 

From  about  June  20,  1863,  the  increased  activity  of  the 
Union  cavalry  gave  every  indication  of  the  long-looked-for 
general  advance  of  Rosecrans's  army.  There  was  hardly  a 
day  that  we  were  not  in  collision  with  their  videttes,  and  on 
June  27  th  we  retired  to  Shelby ville,  where  we  arrived  about 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  just  in  time  to  take  part  in 
the  opening  of  one  of  the  liveliest  experiences  which  fell  to 
my  lot.  On  the  way  back  my  horse  cast  a  front  shoe ;  and 
as  the  farrier  and  forge  had  gone  ahead,  the  shoe  could  not 
be  replaced  at  once.  The  hard  macadamized  road  caused 
a  split  in  Fanny's  hoof,  which  soon  became  so  tender  that 
she  hobbled  in  on  three  legs.  For  the  last  mile  I  led  her  on 
foot.  When  I  reached  the  battle-line  which  was  forming, 
on  account  of  my  lame  horse  I  was  ordered  back  to  the 
wagon-train,  which  was  still  in  sight.  Here  I  found  a  man 
belonging  to  my  company  who  had  a  fairly  good  horse.  He 
readily  consented  to  take  charge  of  Fanny  with  the  wagons, 
so  I  transferred  my  saddle  to  my  new  mount  and  hurried 
back  to  the  company  just  in  time  to  go  out  on  the  skirmish- 
line. 

Some  of  our  cavalry  which  had  been  handled  roughly  at 
Hoover's  Gap  were  coming  in  at  a  lively  pace ;  and  although 
the  sun  was  now  shining,  it  had  rained  hard  for  an  hour  or 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

two  in  the  forenoon,  and  these  flying  troopers,  all  bespattered 
with  mud,  presented  a  rather  demorahzed  appearance  which 
afforded  us  no  Httle  merriment  at  their  expense.  The  pur- 
suers checked  up  when  they  came  in  sight  of  our  Hne  of 
battle  and  formed  theirs  in  full  view,  a  half-mile  in  our  front. 
I  had  scarcely  reached  my  place  with  the  skirmishers  when 
their  long  line  began  to  advance.  We  were  some  two  hun- 
dred yards  in  front  of  our  main  line,  and  the  videttes  de- 
ployed at  intervals  of  about  one  hundred  yards.  When  the 
Federal  skirmisher,  who  was  coming  directly  toward  me, 
was  about  eighty  yards  off  I  thought  it  was  about  time  to 
try  to  stop  him,  and,  taking  as  steady  an  aim  as  was  possible 
from  the  back  of  a  restless  horse,  I  fired.  Instead  of  re- 
turning the  shot  from  his  saddle  he  dismounted,  and,  hold- 
ing on  to  the  bridle,  rested  the  barrel  of  his  gim  against  a 
tree. 

We  were  in  an  open  wooded  bit  of  ground,  and,  forttmately 
for  me,  there  were  other  trees  than  the  one  he  was  using. 
Some  twenty  feet  to  my  right  was  an  oak  of  good  size,  and 
when  I  realized  I  had  missed  him  and  he  was  taking  such 
deliberate  aim  at  me  I  put  the  spurs  to  my  horse  and  tried 
to  get  my  body  behind  it.  As  the  horse  jumped  the  Yankee's 
gun  went  off,  and  when  I  was  within  two  or  three  feet  of  the 
tree  I  saw  the  bark  fly  as  the  bullet  struck  the  trunk  and 
glanced  off.  Either  it  or  a  good-sized  piece  of  bark  struck 
me  on  the  left  side  of  the  abdomen,  and  for  the  moment  I 
was  sure  it  had  gone  through  me,  for  my  left  leg  became 
immediately  numb.  My  gun  being  empty,  I  had  let  it  drop 
to  the  sling  over  my  shoulder  to  which  it  was  attached  for 
safety  and  glanced  quickly  at  the  place  where  I  had  been 
struck.  As  there  was  no  bleeding,  I  was  reassured  at  once 
that  the  ball  had  not  penetrated. 

211 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

All  this  happened  within  a  few  seconds,  and  by  this  time 
my  antagonist,  doubtless  thinking  he  had  disabled  me,  had 
remounted  and  was  coming  right  at  me.  As  he  came  on  at 
full  speed  I  arose  on  tiptoe  in  the  stirrups  and  shot  at  him 
four  times  with  my  army  pistol;  but  my  horse  was  rearing 
and  behaving  so  badly  that  I  failed  to  stop  him.  Inci- 
dentally he  was  popping  away  at  me  with  his  pistol  at  the 
same  time.  As  I  fired  the  fourth  shot  he  was  so  close  I 
could  have  thrown  the  pistol  and  hit  him  with  it.  At  the 
flash  of  this  shot  he  reeled  in  his  saddle,  fell  or  leaned  over 
on  the  other  side  from  me,  pulled  the  bridle  on  that  side, 
turned,  and,  to  my  great  relief,  urged  his  horse  at  full  speed 
toward  his  comrades,  who  were  advancing  in  line  of  battle 
and  were  now  not  over  two  hundred  yards  away.  I  fol- 
lowed him  some  lifty  yards  as  he  still  clung  to  the  saddle, 
gave  him  a  parting  shot,  and  then  turned  back  to  where  I 
belonged. 

This  horseback  duel  had  taken  place  in  plain  view  of  the 
regiment  and  excited  no  little  interest,  for  as  it  ended  a 
wild  cheer  went  up  from  our  line  of  battle,  and  I  only  then 
realized  how  foolish  I  had  been.  This  conviction  was  em- 
phasized by  the  remark  of  a  comrade  who  had  gone  out  with 
Forrest  early  in  the  war  and  knew  what  soldiering  really 
was.  Fearing  I  was  in  danger,  he  had  started  to  my  assist- 
ance, and  as  I  rode  up  to  him  on  my  way  back  he  said, 
"John,  you  are  the  damnedest  fool  I  ever  saw."  * 

I  had  scarcely  taken  my  place  with  my  company  when 
the  enemy's  bugles  sounded  the  charge,  and  their  whole  line 
came  on  at  a  gallop.  We  gave  them  a  volley;  but  I  doubt 
if  this  would  have  stopped  them  if  General  Wheeler  had  not 

1  Dr.  C.  A.  (Meek)  Robinson,  of  Huntsville,  one  of  the  bravest  and  best  sol- 
diers in  our  command,  is  still  living  in  Huntsville  (19 14). 

212 


JOHN    A.    WYETH,  CO.  I,  4TH    ALABAMA    CAVALRY 
From  a  photograph  taken  in  1S61 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

posted  a  battery,  which  at  this  juncture  opened  on  them, 
As  they  broke  under  this  iinexpected  development — for  the 
guns  had  been  masked — we  charged  and  drove  them  in 
considerable  disorder  on  their  reserves,  which  were  con- 
stantly coming  on  the  field.  At  this  advance  I  recall  hearing 
a  ball  strike  the  chest  of  one  of  our  men  which  sounded 
as  if  some  one  had  slapped  him  with  the  palm  of  the  hand. 
It  went  through  one  lung  and  passed  out  below  the  shoulder- 
blade.i 

For  the  entire  afternoon  this  kind  of  fighting  was  going 
on,  with  charge  and  countercharge,  with  no  material  ad- 
vantage to  either  side,  until  late  in  the  day  near  sundown. 
I  did  not  know  it  then,  but  General  Wheeler  told  me  years 
after  the  war  that  when  the  fight  began  the  road  was 
jammed  with  loaded  wagons  filing  slowly  toward  and  over 
the  narrow  bridge  across  Duck  River,  two  miles  in  our  rear, 
and  that  his  fighting  was  to  hold  the  enemy  off  and  save  as 
much  of  the  train  as  possible. 

Had  the  Federal  commander  been  less  cautious  he  could 
have  run  over  us,  battery  and  all,  in  the  first  hour  of  the 
fight,  as  he  did  later  when  the  sun  was  setting,  and  taken  us 
with  the  train,  which  was  now  safe.  As  the  bridge  was  clear, 
General  Wheeler  withdrew  the  artillery  and  all  the  troops 
except  our  regiment,  which  he  left  in  line  across  the  pike 
with  orders  to  stand  our  ground  as  long  as  possible.  As 
the  battery  disappeared  the  Union  commander  ordered  a 
general  advance,  and  as  we  sat  on  our  horses,  ranged  along 
the  crest  of  a  gentle  rise,  I  witnessed  one  of  the  most  mag- 
nificent cavalry  charges  made  during  the  war.  For  a  mile 
at  least  the  open  country  in  our  front  was  in  plain  view,  and 

1  This  man  and  another  young  soldier  (Polk  Wright)  from  Huntsville,  who 
was  shot  here  through  one  lung,  also  recovered. 

213 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

it  was  blue  with  thousands  of  Federal  soldiers,  for  Stanley's 
corps  was  coming  on  the  field,  ten  thousand  in  all,  as  the 
official  reports  show.  Had  we  been  wise  our  small  band 
would  have  scattered  at  once  into  the  woods  to  the  east  and 
saved  itself,  instead  of  waiting  to  be  ridden  over.  But  we 
had  our  orders  to  wait  until  they  were  within  easy  range, 
fire,  and  then  ''sauve  qui  pent.''  The  Seventh  Pennsylva- 
nia came  on  in  front,  in  columns  of  fours,  in  gallant  style, 
and  just  behind  galloped  the  Fourth  United  States  regulars. 
As  they  came  within  four  hundred  yards  of  us  they  spread 
right  and  left  into  line,  opening  like  a  fan.  It  was  a  glorious 
sight,  and  the  thunder  of  their  horses'  hoofs  was  the  only 
sound.  Not  a  word  of  command,  not  a  huzza  from  them, 
or  a  yell  of  defiance  from  us  do  I  recall.  The  truth  is,  there 
was  no  defiance  in  us,  only  the  courage  bom  of  despair,  for 
we  knew  we  were  doomed.  I  lived  an  age  in  those  few 
minutes,  and  every  incident  of  the  wonderful  picture  flashes 
on  the  screen  of  memory  so  vividly,  so  distinctly,  that  I  can 
almost  believe  I  am  again  a  lad  just  turned  eighteen  and 
witnessing  that  scene  anew.  And  clearer  than  all  else 
there  stands  in  relief  the  form  and  face  of  one  of  the  bravest 
men  that  lived,  who  in  this  crisis  gave  me  the  assurance  of 
a  friendship  which  I  have  ever  valued  as  one  of  the  priceless 
treasures  of  my  life. 

I  had  known  John  Gibson  only  a  few  months;  he  was  an 
officer  in  another  company  than  mine,  and  yet  we  were  al- 
ready like  brothers.  There  is  not  only  "a  divinity  that 
shapes  our  ends";  there  is  a  divine,  a  mysterious  influence 
which  shapes  our  friendships,  and  that  influence  had  brought 
us  together.  He  was  our  colonel's  most  trusted  scout, 
venturesome  without  being  foolhardy,  cool  and  self-pos- 
sessed in  the  moment  of  peril,  and  so  tenacious  of  purpose 

214 


LIEUT.    JOHN    A.    GIBSON,   CO.    C,    4TH     ALABAMA     CAVALRY 

From  a  photograph  taken  ten  years  after  the  Civil  War  closed 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

that  when  sent  out  for  information  he  never  came  in  empty- 
handed.  I  had  been  close  to  him  aheady  on  two  exciting 
occasions,  the  one  when  Brownlow's  men  killed  his  horse 
near  Rover,  the  other  when  our  two  wounded  men  were 
murdered  near  Eagleville,  for  he  was  in  charge  of  the  scout 
that  day. 

In  the  emergency  that  was  at  hand  now,  while  the  double 
blue  line,  with  their  drawn  sabres  gleaming  high  above 
their  heads  and  bearing  down  on  us  at  a  gallop,  was  still 
two  or  three  hundred  yards  away,  Gibson  galloped  to  my 
side  and  said,  "Johnny,  when  we  break  I'll  be  with  you," 
and,  pointing  back  in  the  direction  we  were  to  retreat,  he 
said,  "Bear  off  to  the  left  yonder,"  and  then  he  went  to 
his  place.  Gibson's  quick  eye  had  seen  what  would  prob- 
ably have  escaped  me,  as  I  was  comparatively  new  in  the 
business  of  war.  Our  position  was  very  nearly  opposite 
the  extreme  left  of  the  advancing  line,  and  a  sharp  run  in 
the  direction  he  had  indicated  gave  us  a  chance  to  get  out 
of  the  heavier  rush  of  the  charge,  and  possibly  to  dodge  it 
altogether. 

With  our  guns  at  cock,  and  sighting  along  the  barrel, 
waiting  for  the  word,  they  were  now  so  near  that  we  could 
distinctly  see  their  features;  then  some  one  shouted  "Fire!" 
and  as  our  volley  blazed  in  their  faces  we  wheeled  our 
horses  and  started  on  the  race  for  hfe.  By  the  time  we 
turned  about  not  more  than  fifty  yards  separated  pursuers 
and  pursued.  Obeying  my  friend's  injunction,  I  bore  off 
to  the  left  at  the  best  speed  my  horse  could  go,  and  within 
the  first  hundred  yards  of  our  flight  Gibson,  on  his  big,  blue 
roan,  six-shooter  in  hand,  was  at  my  side.  Very  near  us — so 
near,  in  fact,  that  they  called  to  us  to  stop  and  surrender — 
were  a  dozen  or  more  Federal  troopers,  who  had  in  all  prob- 

215 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ability  noticed  that  we  were  trying  to  run  around  the  end 
of  their  Hne,  while  looming  up  before  us  was  a  rail-fence 
which  seemed  very  high.  As  it  was  evident  that  I  could 
never  clear  it,  I  said:  "Lieutenant,  I'll  never  get  over  on 
this  horse.  Go  on  and  save  yourself."  His  quick  reply 
was:  "I'll  knock  the  top  rails  off,  and  you  follow."  And 
as  he  spoke  his  splendid  horse  went  over  like  a  bird,  never 
touching  a  rail.  I  was  now  not  more  than  three  lengths 
behind  him  as  he  pulled  up,  turned  in  his  saddle  and  shot 
at  the  man  who  was  nearest  to  me  with  his  sabre  raised  for 
the  finishing-stroke.  To  avoid  this  danger  I  dodged  to 
take  the  next  panel,  which  my  horse  struck  at  full  speed, 
and  he,  his  rider,  and  a  dozen  or  more  fence-rails  went  down 
in  a  heap  together.  My  last  recollection  of  Gibson  was 
when  his  x)istol  flashed.  He  saw  the  disaster  that  had  over- 
taken me,  and  he  told  me  afterward  he  was  sure  I  had  been 
killed.  He  so  reported,  and  my  parents  had  the  great  dis- 
tress of  finding  me  named  among  those  who  were  dead. 
I  have  no  clear  remembrance  of  what  took  place  after  I 
struck  the  ground.  When  I  "came  to"  my  horse  was  a  few 
yards  away  nibbling  at  some  grass,  and  not  another  living 
thing  was  in  sight.  Far  off,  a  mile  or  more  in  the  direction 
of  Shelbyville,  guns  were  popping  and  men  were  shouting 
and  yelling;  and  the  sun  had  gone  down.  I  got  on  my  feet, 
caught  my  horse,  and  led  him  into  a  near-by  clump  of  cedars 
to  be  sure  of  a  hiding-place.  My  gun  and  pistol  were 
empty.  I  at  once  reloaded  them.  It  soon  grew  dark 
enough  to  venture  out,  and,  still  bearing  off  to  the  east,  I 
crossed  a  road  and  came  upon  a  farm-house,  the  occupants 
of  which  gave  me  directions  to  find  my  way  to  the  river. 
The  bridge  at  Shelbyville  was  now  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy.     The  next  one  was  eight  or  ten  miles  to  the  east, 

216 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  my  only  hope  was  to  hurry  on  and  reach  it  before  they 
could.  Following  a  southeasterly  course,  guided  by  the 
stars,  across  fields  and  through  long  stretches  of  woodland, 
I  came  about  midnight  into  a  well-used  road  near  a  house. 
There  was  no  light  within,  but  as  I  rode  up  to  the  front  gate 
I  recognized  the  outline  of  a  horse  hitched  to  the  fence. 

I  was  quite  certain  it  did  not  belong  to  a  Federal  soldier, 
for  the  reason  that  one  lone  trooper  would  not  venture  this 
far  afield  and  be  away  from  his  horse.  In  feeling  over  the 
saddle — for  it  was  so  dark  I  could  not  see  clearly — I  struck 
a  wooden  canteen.  Then  I  knew  the  owner  was  a  Con- 
federate, and  I  hallooed.  A  man  came  to  the  door,  and 
when  he  heard  my  story  he  said  there  was  another  soldier 
in  the  house  on  his  way  to  the  bridge,  which  was  two  miles 
off;  so  we  rode  on  together. 

When  within  some  two  hundred  yards  of  the  bridge  we 
were  startled  by  a  loud  shout  which  formed  itself  into 
' '  Halt !  Who  comes  there  ? ' '  and  I  answered,  ' '  Friend. ' '  The 
sentinel  replied,  "What  command?"  Fearing  he  might  be 
a  Federal  picket,  I  hedged  by  shouting,  "Who  are  you?"  At 
this  there  came  the  most  pleasing  blasphemy  that  has  ever 
grated  on  my  Presbyterian  ears,  "Eighth  Texas,  by  God!" 
Then  I  answered,  "Fourth  Alabama."  "How  many?" 
"Two."  "One  of  you  come  up  on  foot."  One  of  us  went 
up  on  foot,  and  we  were  safe  at  last.  A  half-mile  on  the 
south  side  of  Duck  River  two  worn-out  Confederates  on 
two  worn-out  horses  rode  into  a  clump  of  trees,  dismounted, 
unsaddled,  tethered,  and  when  they  opened  their  eyes  the 
sun  had  been  up  an  hour  or  more.  The  27th  of  June,  1863, 
was  for  one  of  the  two  a  day  never  to  be  forgotten.  Neither 
of  us  had  eaten  anything  since  noon  of  the  day  before,  and 
our  forage-sacks  were  empty.  The  army  had  passed  along 
15  217 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

this  road  on  its  retreat,  and  the  locusts  never  stripped 
Egypt  any  cleaner  than  the  hungry  Confederates  did  the 
ground  they  passed  over.  Our  horses  could  get  an  oc- 
casional tuft  of  grass  or  a  bunch  of  leaves,  but  their  riders 
could  not  graze  or  browse. 

We  followed  a  road  leading  south  to  Tullahoma.  The 
wagon-trains  had  evidently  gone  by  this  route,  and  how  they 
ever  got  through  was  a  wonder.  The  June  rains  had  been 
pouring  down  for  the  last  week  and  were  to  keep  on  pouring 
for  another.  Once  or  twice  every  day  or  night  the  heavens 
opened  and  soaked  the  earth  and  us ;  then  the  hot  sun  would 
do  its  best  to  dry  us  by  a  process  akin  to  steaming;  then 
another  showier,  and  so  on.  For  thirteen  days  in  this  re- 
treat we  were  wet  at  least  once  every  day.^  The  rawhide 
upon  our  saddle-trees  softened,  slipped,  rotted,  and  stanJc 
to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  our  practice  whenever  a  hah 
was  made  to  strip  our  horses,  turn  our  saddles  under  side 
up,  and  dry  them  and  our  blankets.  When  we  reached  Elk 
River,  some  days  later  (July  2d),  and  took  advantage  of  the 
first  [opportunity  for  a  wash  (no  real  soldier  ever  bathed) , 
in  trying  to  get  my  cotton  shirt  off  it  came  hopelessly  to 
pieces.  How  aptly  the  song  in  "The  Pirates  of  Penzance" 
applies  to  the  experiences  of  war: 

Taking  one  consideration  with  another, 
A  (soldier's)  life  is  not  a  happy  one. 

As  we  were  riding  along  we  noticed  lying  in  the  muddy 
road  a  knuckle  of  ham-bone  several  inches  in  length.  That 
portion  sticking  out  of  the  mud  had  been  picked  so  clean 
it  seemed  hardly  worth  while  to  investigate  the  hidden 
portion,  and  we  passed  on.     The  sight  of  something  which 

^  To  any  who  may  think  this  an  exaggeration  or  a  lapse  of  memory  I  refer 
to  the  Official  Records  of  this  campaign  for  daily  weather  reports. 

218 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

might  be  eaten,  however,  started  our  saHvary  and  gastric 
machinery  into  action,  so  we  stopped  our  horses,  and  one 
said  he  thought  he  would  go  back  and  see  if  anything  had 
been  left  on  the  under  side.  I  was  that  one;  and  when  I 
scraped  the  mud  off  as  cautiously  as  I  could  and  showed  it 
to  my  comrade,  even  the  periosteum  had  disappeared.  As 
a  last  resort  we  tightened  our  cartridge-box  belts  and  rode 
on. 

The  Federal  cavalry  reached  the  outposts  in  front  of  Tul- 
lahoma  almost  as  soon  as  we  did,  for  I  scarcely  had  time 
to  assure  my  comrades  that  I  wasn't  dead  when  we  had  a 
collision  with  them.  There  we  lost  the  gallant  Stearns  of 
the  Fourth  Tennessee,  one  of  the  best  colonels  of  cavalry 
the  Civil  War  developed.  As  every  one  in  the  company 
thought  I  had  been  killed,  my  reappearance  afforded  an  op- 
portunity for  congratulations  in  which  I  heartily  joined.  I 
looked  up  Gibson  at  once,  and  his  outburst  was:  "Lord 
God  Almighty  —  Johnny!"  It  was  irreverent,  but  not 
meant  to  be  so,  and  I  give  the  words  just  as  the  brave 
lieutenant  spoke  them.  My  mother  and  my  father  had 
started  for  the  front  when  they  read  the  news  of  the  bad 
luck  which  had  befallen,  but  went  back  when  I  reappeared. 

There  is  not  in  all  the  history  of  our  great  war  a  more 
heroic  record  than  that  of  General  Joseph  Wheeler,  and  with 
the  means  at  hand  he  never  fought  a  better  fight,  or  achieved 
a  greater  success,  or  showed  more  generalship  or  more  des- 
perate personal  bravery  than  here  at  Shelbyville. 

The  Official  Records  show  that  in  addition  to  an  infantry 
force  of  about  ten  thousand  men,  which  came  up  late  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  27th  of  June,  the  following  Union  regiments 
were  on  the  ground  and  actively  engaged  (see  pp.  547,  548, 
and  556,  vol,  xxiii,  part  i): 

219 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

First  Brigade  of  Turchin^s  Division 
(Colonel  Robert  H.  G.  Minty.) 

Third  Indiana,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  Klein. 
Fifth  Iowa,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Matthewson  T.  Patrick. 
Fourth  Michigan,  Major  Frank  W.  Mix. 
Seventh  Pennsylvania,  Lieutenant-Colonel  William  B.  Sipes. 
Fifth  Tennessee,  Colonel  William  B.  Stokes. 
Fourth  United  States,  Captain  James  B.  Mclntyre. 
First  Ohio  Artillery,  Battery  D  (one  section),  Lieutenant  Nathaniel  M. 
Newell. 

First  Brigade  of  MitchelVs  Division 
(Colonel  Archibald  P.  Campbell.) 
Fourth  Kentucky,  Colonel  Wickliffe  Cooper. 
Sixth  Kentucky,  Colonel  Louis  D.  Watkins. 
Seventh  Kentucky,  Colonel  John  K.  Faulkner. 
Second  Michigan,  Major  John  C.  Godley. 
First  Tennessee,  Lieutenant-Colonel  James  P.  Brownlow. 

Colonel  E.  M.  McCook's  brigade  was  in  reserve  and  on 
the  field.     It  was  made  up  of: 

Second  Indiana,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  R.  Stewart. 

Fourth  Indiana,  Lieutenant-Colonel  John  A,  Platter. 

Fifth  Kentucky,  Lieutenant-Colonel  William  T.  Hoblitzell. 

Second  Tennessee,  Colonel  Daniel  M.  Ray. 

First  Wisconsin,  Colonel  Oscar  H.  LaGrange. 

First  Ohio  Artillery,  Battery  D  (one  section),  Captain  Andrew  J.  Konkle. 

With  their  superior  numbers  and  equipment  the  Federals 
could  have  run  over  us  at  any  time  after  three  o'clock, 
captured  us  and  the  enormous  wagon-train  floundering  slow- 
ly along  in  the  muddy  roads  between  Shelbyville  and  Tulla- 
homa.  It  was  nearly  sundown  when  the  last  wagon  was 
over  the  river.  Wheeler  at  no  time  on  that  day  had  more 
than  three  thousand  effective  men  under  his  command,  and 
his  principal  losses  were  caused  by  his  recrossing  to  the 
north  side  after  he  and  his  men  were  safely  over,  as  he  was 

220 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

informed  that  Forrest  had  come  up  and  was  being  sur- 
rounded. In  an  article  entitled  "General  Wheeler's  Leap," 
published  in  Harper's  Weekly  for  June  i8,  1898,  the  follow- 
ing description  is  given: 

"General  Wheeler,  who  had  safely  crossed  the  river,  was 
in  the  act  of  firing  the  bridge  when  a  member  of  General 
Forrest's  staff  reported  to  him  that  Forrest,  with  two 
brigades,  was  within  two  miles  of  Shelbyville  and  advancing 
rapidly  to  cross.  Realizing  the  danger  which  threatened 
Forrest,  Wheeler,  notwithstanding  the  Federals  were  in 
strong  force  in  the  suburbs  of  Shelbyville  and  advancing 
into  town,  taking  with  him  two  pieces  of  artillery  and  five 
hundred  men  of  Martin's  division,  with  this  officer,  hastily 
recrossed  the  north  side  in  order  to  hold  the  bridge  and  save 
Forrest  from  disaster. 

"The  guns  were  hastily  thrown  into  position,  but  the 
charges  had  scarcely  been  rammed  home  when  the  Union 
troops  came  in  full  sweep  down  the  main  street.  When 
within  a  few  paces  of  the  muzzle  of  the  guns  they  were  dis- 
charged, inflicting,  however,  insignificant  loss.  With  their 
small  force  of  five  hundred  men  Generals  Wheeler  and  Mar- 
tin stood  up  as  best  they  could  under  the  pressure  of  this 
charge.  They  held  their  ground  manfully  as  the  cavalry 
rode  through  and  over  them,  sabring  the  cannoneers  from 
the  guns,  of  which  they  took  possession,  and  then  passed 
on  and  seciured  the  bridge,  leaving  the  two  Confederate 
generals  and  their  troops  well  in  the  rear.  The  bridge  had 
become  blocked  by  one  of  the  caissons,  which  had  been 
overturned,  and  now,  thinking  they  had  them  in  a  trap, 
the  Union  forces  formed  a  line  of  battle  parallel  with  the 
bank  of  Duck  River  and  across  the  entrance  to  the  bridge. 

"The  idea  of  surrendering  himself  and  his  command  had 

221 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

not  entered  the  mind  of  General  Wheeler.  As  Poniatowski 
had  done  at  the  Elster,  he  now  shouted  to  his  men  that  they 
must  cut  their  way  through  and  attempt  to  escape  by 
swimming  the  river.  With  General  JMartin  by  his  side, 
sabres  in  hand,  they  led  the  charge,  which,  made  in  such 
desperate  mood,  parted  the  Federals  in  their  front  as  they 
rode  through.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation,  and  with- 
out considering  the  distance  from  the  top  of  the  river-bank, 
which  was  here  precipitous,  to  the  water-level,  these  gallant 
soldiers  followed  their  invincible  leader  and  plunged  at  full 
speed  sheer  fifteen  feet  down  into  the  sweeping  current. 

"They  struck  the  water  with  such  velocity  that  horses 
and  riders  disappeared,  some  of  them  to  rise  no  more. 
The  Union  troopers  rushed  to  the  water's  edge  and  fired 
at  the  men  and  animals  struggling  in  the  river,  killing  or 
wounding  and  drowning  a  nimiber.  Holding  to  his  horse's 
mane,  General  Wheeler  took  the  precaution  to  shield  him- 
self as  much  as  possible  behind  the  body  of  the  animal, 
and,  although  fired  at  repeatedly,  he  escaped  injur,''  and 
safely  reached  the  opposite  shore.  Some  forty  or  fifty  were 
said  to  have  perished  in  this  desperate  attempt.  'Fighting 
Joe  Wheeler'  never  did  a  more  heroic  and  generous  deed 
than  when  he  risked  all  to  save  Forrest  from  disaster. 
Many  years  after  the  war  the  hero  of  this  story  gave  me 
the  facts  as  above  stated." 


XVII 

TULLAHOMA   TO   ALEXANDRIA — ELK   RIVER 

There  was  to  be  no  great  battle  at  Tullahoma,  where 
behind  formidable  intrenchments  Bragg's  army  had  for 
months  been  sheltered,  and  upon  which  Rosecrans  was  now 
advancing.  When  we  arrived  the  wagon-trains  had  had 
a  four  days'  start  along  the  awful  roads  to  Chattanooga. 
The  artillery  went  next,  then  the  long  lines  of  infantry 
floundered  through  the  mud,  and  last  of  all  we  brought  up 
the  rear.  Nothing  so  depresses  an  army  as  a  retreat;  no 
duty  is  so  harrowing  and  demoralizing  as  that  of  fighting 
rear-guard  actions  day  after  day.  South  of  Tullahoma,  with 
the  regular  instalment  of  rain,  we  stood  off  the  aggressive 
Union  cavalry  until  we  cleared  the  half -barren  post-oak  and 
black-jack  plateau,  from  the  summit  of  which  we  descended 
to  cross  Elk  River  on  a  planked-over  railroad-bridge,  and 
at  dark  on  July  ist  found  ourselves  posted  to  oppose  the 
enemy  at  the  crossing  of  this  river  known  as  Morris's  Ford. 

On  our  side  of  the  river  at  this  crossing  there  was  an  open 
hillside  which  sloped  gradually  upward  from  the  river-bank 
for  about  four  hundred  yards.  It  was  an  old,  turned-out 
field,  barren  of  trees  or  bushes  and  fully  exposed  to  the  fire 
of  artillery  and  small  arms  from  the  opposite  shore,  which 
commanded  the  slope  for  this  distance.  Straight  up  this 
hillside  the  road  ascended  from  the  ford.  The  only  pro- 
tection east  of  the  roadway  on  the  south  side  was  a  narrow 

223 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

fringe  of  bushes  and  small  trees  which  grew  immediately 
upon  the  edge  of  the  bank,  just  back  of  which  was  a  worm- 
fence  half  fallen  to  pieces  from  age  and  neglect.  West  of 
the  road,  as  it  led  up  from  the  crossing,  was  a  fairly  dense 
thicket  of  scrub  timber  about  half  an  acre  in  extent.  Through 
this  undergrowth  there  ran  obliquely  from  the  hillside  east- 
ward to  the  river  a  sinuous  wash-out  some  four  or  five  feet 
in  depth  which  afforded  admirable  protection  to  a  limited 
number  of  sharp-shooters. 

From  this  gully  the  entrance  to  the  ford  from  the  opposite 
side  was  in  plain  view,  and  not  over  eighty  yards  distant. 
Upon  the  opposite  or  northern  shore  of  Elk  River,  which 
was  here  not  more  than  two  hundred  feet  wide,  there  was 
a  low  bottom  heavily  timbered  and  with  a  dense  under- 
growth of  small  bushes  which  extended  back  some  two  hun- 
dred yards  from  the  stream.  A  fringe  of  tall,  rank  weeds 
lined  the  river-bank.  The  roadway  coming  from  the  north 
and  leading  into  the  stream  was  an  ordinary  Southern 
country  highway,  and  so  narrow  that  not  more  than  four 
men  could  ride  abreast.  Moreover,  as  a  result  of  the  heavy 
rains, ^  the  river  was  so  full  that  in  midstream  it  was  swim- 
ming for  the  horses  for  probably  half  of  its  width. 

On  the  morning  of  July  2,  1863,  we  were  up  early  and 
were  congratulating  ourselves  on  having  a  short  rest.  It 
was  clear,  and  as  soon  as  the  sun  rose  we  turned  our  sad- 
dles bottom  side  up  to  dry,  and  while  some  of  the  men 
were  busy  getting  breakfast  a  number  of  us  went  down  to 

*  Official  Records,  series  i,  vol.  xxiii,  part  i,  p.  620. 

(a)  June  26th:  "Rained  nearly  all  day." — Major-General  David  S.Stanley. 

(b)  June  28th:  "At  daylight  the  train  and  troops  were  all  in  motion,  but 
owing  to  the  continued  rains  the  roads  were  in  a  terrible  condition." 

(c)  June  29th:  "The  men  remained  in  line  all  day  and  all  night.  Raining 
all  day  and  night." — Lieutenant  W.  B.  Richmond,  aide-de-camp  to  Lieutenant- 
General  Polk. 

?24 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  river  to  indulge  in  the  liixury  of  a  swim.  As  we  were 
finishing  our  simple  breakfast  of  corn-bread  and  bacon  the 
videttes  left  half  a  mile  from  the  ford  on  the  north  side  of 
the  stream  fired  at  a  squadron  of  the  Fourth  Ohio  Cavalry, 
which  chased  them  into  the  river.  As  soon  as  the  guns 
were  heard  we  were  ordered  to  rush  to  the  ford  and  hold 
the  enemy  back.  Some  of  us  (sixteen  in  all)  were  fortunate 
enough  to  reach  the  small  thicket  near  the  crossing,  where 
we  ensconced  ourselves  in  the  gully  described  before.  Others 
lay  down  behind  the  worm-fence,  with  nothing  but  that  and 
the  light  fringe  of  bushes  for  protection.  We  had  barely 
reached  our  places  when  the  Federals  opened  on  us  with  a 
heavy  fire  of  small  arms  and  two  pieces  of  artillery.^  This 
fire  raked  the  bivouac  on  the  open  hillside  behind  us,  stam- 
peded the  horses,  and  drove  the  entire  command — except- 
ing the  small  number  who  had  already  succeeded  in  shelter- 
ing themselves  close  along  the  bank — back  over  the  crest 
of  the  hill  fully  a  half-mile  away.  As  we  had  no  artillery, 
our  position  was  not  to  be  envied.  To  try  to  escape  ex- 
posed us  at  close  range  to  the  fire  from  small  arms,  and  to 
grape  and  canister  for  fully  four  hundred  yards  of  open 
hillside.  Realizing  that  we  were  in  for  it,  we  prepared  for 
rapid  loading  by  laying  our  cartridges  and  caps  in  rows  on 
the  ground  and  concentrated  our  fire  on  the  narrow  road- 
way which  led  into  the  stream  from  the  other  side. 

After  having  driven  everybody  else  away,  the  enemy  gave 
their  undivided  attention  to  us,  and  for  nearly  three  hours  - 
there  was  the  liveliest  firing  I  ever  heard.  They  were  so 
near  we  could  distinctly  hear  every  command  given  in  an 
ordinary  tone  of  voice.     Those  of  our  men  who  were  lying 

^  Stokes's  battery. 

2  Lieutenant-Colonel  O.  P.  Robbie  says,  "Nearly  three  hours." — Official 
Records,  vol.  xxiii,  part  I,  p.  575. 

225 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

behind  the  old  fence  suffered  severely,  and  a  number  were 
killed  or  wounded  (we  could  hear  their  groans),  and  long 
before  the  fight  was  over  no  resistance  was  offered  anywhere 
except  by  our  small  squad  of  sixteen  men.  Captain  Stokes 
of  the  Federal  battery  reported  that  he  "advanced  his 
section  within  thirty  yards  of  the  crossing"  ^  and  opened 
on  us  "with  canister."  Finally  they  tried  volley-firing, 
concentrating  all  their  small  arms  and  both  cannon  loaded 
with  grape  or  canister  on  our  thicket,  an  area  not  larger 
than  half  an  acre.  Our  fire  must  have  been  effective,  for 
we  kept  their  two  guns  and  them  back  in  the  undergrowth, 
where  they  could  not  aim  with  accuracy.  Our  heads  alone 
were  exposed,  and  after  the  first  volley  we  ducked  into  the 
gully  to  avoid  the  others,  for  we  distinctly  heard  the  guns 
being  loaded  and  knew  about  when  they  were  going  to  pull 
the  lanyards.  The  missiles  crashed  in  showers  through  the 
bushes  or  plowed  up  the  dirt  over  us,  but  we  were  unhurt. 
They  seemed  coming  thick  enough  to  mow  the  saplings  down, 
and  but  for  the  gully  we  would  all  have  been  killed. 

The  thick  hedge  or  fringe  of  high  weeds  along  the  north- 
ern bank,  where  the  soil  was  rich,  which  was  not  present  on 
our  side  where  the  river  cut  into  the  hill,  gave  us  a  great  ad- 
vantage. At  one  time  we  observed  a  movement  of  the  top 
of  these  weeds,  which  indicated  that  some  one  was  crawling 
down  to  near  the  water's  edge;  and  Frank  Cotton,  Jasper 
Matheny,  and  I  trained  our  guns  on  that  point.  As  soon 
as  the  blue  uniform  was  seen  we  fired  together,  and  nothing 
more  came  from  that  quarter. 

While  this  fight  was  in  progress  there  occurred  an  in- 
cident that  may  well  challenge  credulity.  For  pickets  of 
the  two  armies  posted  on  opposite  sides  of  narrow  streams 

'  Official  Records,  vol.  xxiii,  part  i,  p.  579. 
226 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

to  converse  and  at  times  to  barter  during  the  suspension 
of  active  hostilities  was  not  uncommon,  but  to  call  a  truce 
while  the  desperate  defense  of  an  important  crossing  was 
going  on  was  certainly  a  novel  procedure,  yet  this  occurred 
here.  I  credit  the  Union  officer  responsible  for  it  with 
motives  of  generous  admiration  for  a  handful  of  men  who 
were  putting  up  a  desperate  and  determined  fight.  In  a 
lull  longer  than  usual  which  followed  one  of  their  volleys 
a  voice  from  their  side  said,  "Hello,  boys!  Let's  hold  up 
awhile  and  talk  it  over."  We  could  scarcely  believe  our 
senses,  and  Frank  Cotton  replied,  "What  do  you  want?" 
The  Federal  answered,  "To  stop  firing,"  and  we  said,  "All 
right." 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  time  accurately  under  circum- 
stances of  great  excitement.  I  am  positive  that  several 
minutes  elapsed,  during  which  time  we  and  they  talked  as 
if  in  ordinary  conversation.  I  recall  clearly  that  one  of 
our  squad  asked  in  a  joking  way  if  tobacco  was  not  scarce 
on  their  side,  and  got  the  retort,  "Not  any  scarcer  than  coffee 
is  over  there." 

The  truce  ended  abruptly  when  the  Union  officer  said, 
' '  Look  out ;  we  will  have  to  open  fire  again, ' '  and  we  soon 
understood  the  reason.  Being  informed  of  our  situation. 
General  Wheeler  had  hurried  back  two  Parrott  guns,  which 
at  this  moment  were  unlimbering  on  the  crest  of  the  ridge 
behind  us  where  we  could  not  see  them,  but  in  plain  view 
of  the  Federals.  The  roar  of  these  guns,  the  whizzing  of 
the  shells  as  they  passed  not  far  above  our  heads,  and  their 
explosion  in  the  timber  across  the  river  was  the  most  wel- 
come sound  I  ever  heard,  for  the  Yankees  scampered  away 
as  fast  as  our  men  had  earlier  in  the  day.  Then  when  all 
was  clear  we  ventured  out  and  rejoined  our  company,  to 

227 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

be  publicly  commended  by  our  good  colonel  for  what  we 
really  couldn't  help  doing. 

Wishing  to  make  this  extraordinary  experience  a  matter 
of  record,  several  years  after  the  war  I  secured  the  follow- 
ing statement  in  writing  from  Mr.  Jasper  N.  Matheny,  a 
worthy  farmer  who  in  19 13  was  still  living  in  Marshall 
County,  Alabama,  and  who  was  one  of  this  detachment. 
I  wrote  him  as  follows:  "Kindly  let  me  know  if  you  were 
with  this  detachment  on  that  day  (July  2,  1863),  and,  if  so, 
whether  or  not  you  recall  the  fact  that  in  a  temporary  lull 
in  the  firing,  by  mutual  consent,  the  firing  on  both  sides 
ceased  for  several  minutes,  during  which  time  we  talked  to 
each  other  in  practically  an  ordinary  tone  of  voice."  In 
reply  he  says: 

I  distinctly  recall  the  fact  concerning  which  you  write.  During  the 
truce  we  exposed  ourselves  to  view  by  standing  up  in  the  gully  in  which 
we  had  been  hidden,  and  no  one  shot  at  us,  nor  did  we  again  fire.  I  am 
under  the  impression  that  at  least  five  or  ten  minutes  elapsed  before  the 
conversation  was  interrupted  by  a  Federal,  presumably  an  officer,  who 
gave  us  warning  that  the  firing  would  be  resumed.  We  again  concealed 
ourselves,  but  were  almost  immediately  rescued  from  our  precarious  posi- 
tion by  a  Confederate  battery,  which  from  the  hill  in  our  rear  opened  upon 
the  Federals  across  the  stream  and  drove  them  precipitately  from  our 
front.  (Signed)  J.  N.  Matheny. 

In  looking  over  the  Official  Records  I  find  a  further  corrobo- 
ration in  the  report  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  Oliver  P.  Robie, 
of  the  Fourth  Ohio  Cavalry,  who  commanded  the  advance, 
dated  "July  8,  1863,  near  Winchester"  {Official  Records, 
vol.  xxiii,  part  i,  p.  575) :  "On  the  morning  of  the  2d  [July] 
we  came  upon  a  small  squad  of  rebels,  to  whom  we  gave  chase 
as  far  as  the  river,  when,  finding  the  river  too  deep  to  ford 
quickly,  and  the  enemy  in  considerable  force  on  the  oppo- 
site side,  in  obedience  to  orders   I  retired  a  short  distance 

228 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

and  dismounted  my  men  and  advanced  into  the  thicket 
skirting  the  bank  on  the  right  of  the  road,  where  we  remained 
within  speaking  distance  of  the  enemy  for  nearly  three  hours, 
during  which  time  the  firing  was  very  brisk,^  At  ii  a.m. 
the  enemy  opened  fire  upon  us  with  shell  and  canister,  and, 
fearing  a  stampede  of  my  horses,  I  returned  and  mounted 
my  men  and  retired  about  a  fourth  of  a  mile  and  formed  a 
line." 

Colonel  Eli  Long,  commanding  a  Union  brigade  at  this 
date,  a  gallant  officer  who  never  failed  to  distinguish  him- 
self, was  in  command  in  this  fight.  Six  days  thereafter, 
on  July  8,  1863,  he  officially  reported  as  follows:  "July  2d. 
Returned  to  Hillsborough,  thence  taking  the  Winchester 
road.  When  within  a  mile  of  Morris's  Ford  on  Elk  River 
my  advance  discovered  a  squad  of  rebel  cavalry  and  gave 
chase,  the  remainder  of  their  regiment  (Fourth  Ohio  Volun- 
teer Cavalry)  moving  up  briskly.  Pursued  them  to  the 
river,  and  drove  them  into  the  stream,  when  sharp  mus- 
ketry-firing was  opened  on  the  advance  from  the  woods  on 
the  opposite  shore,  and  replied  to  by  my  men,  who  found 
the  water  too  deep  to  ford  readily.  The  enemy  proved  to 
be  in  considerable  force,  and  additional  companies  were 
moved  up  to  support  the  advance.  One  officer  (Captain 
Adae)  and  one  man  of  the  Fourth  Ohio  were  here  wounded; 
and,  the  firing  becoming  more  heavy,  I  dismounted  the  re- 
maining company  of  the  Fourth  and  sent  them  forward 
as  skirmishers  on  the  front  and  left.  I  then  dismounted  a 
part  of  the  Third  Ohio  and  deployed  them  in  the  woods  on 
our  right.  The  numbers  of  the  enemy  were  augmented  by 
reinforcements  from  their  rear^  and  they  occupied  a  quite 
strong  position,  so  that  it  was  found  difficult  to  dislodge 

^Italics  not  in  the  original. 
229 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

them  until  two  pieces  of  Captain  Stokes's  battery  were 
brought  forward  by  order  of  General  Turchin  and  opened 
upon  them.  This  silenced  their  fire  for  a  while,  but  mean- 
time they  were  reinforced  by  a  brigade  of  infantry  and  two 
pieces  of  artillery,  the  latter  of  which  opened  upon  us  a 
fierce  fire  with  six  and  twelve  pounder  shells  and  canister. 
My  main  command  (twelve  companies  altogether)  was  now 
forced  back  from  the  woods.  Sharp  firing  was  now  kept  up 
on  both  sides  for  some  time,  the  rebel  infantry  retiring  tow- 
ard Decherd,  with  the  two  pieces  of  artillery,  .  ,  .  My  entire 
loss  during  the  day  was  one  officer  and  ten  men  wounded. 
Two  of  the  latter  were  mortally  wounded,  and  died  during 
the  afternoon."  ^ 

General  Long  was  in  error  in  regard  to  the  presence  of 
any  infantry  on  our  side.  After  their  artillery  opened  and 
drove  the  fragments  of  our  brigade  (parts  of  the  Fifty-first 
and  Fourth  Alabama  regiments)  there  was  not  a  Confeder- 
ate soldier  in  firing  distance  except  our  squad  of  sixteen  men. 
Protected  as  we  were,  and  commanding  at  close  range  the 
narrow  roadway  which  led  into  the  river,  our  position  was 
impregnable. 

We  had  scarcely  reached  our  horses  when  Lieutenant  Gib- 
son was  ordered  to  take  a  scouting  party  of  eight  men  to 
investigate  a  report  that  the  enemy  were  crossing  at  an 
obscure  ford  about  a  mile  and  a  half  below  or  west  of  our 
position,  and  I  went  along.  After  going  about  a  mile  we 
left  the  high  ground  and  were  soon  in  the  thickly  wooded 
land  of  the  river-bottom  following  a  narrow,  winding,  and 
little-used  road  which  had  been  made  through  a  dense 
thicket  of  small  saplings  into  which  one  could  not  see  fifty 
feet  on  either  side.  Gibson  rode  ahead,  and  we  followed  in 
*  Official  Records,  vol.  xxiii,  part  I,  p.  558. 
230 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

close  double  file.  George  Morris  and  Will  Fackler  were  in 
front,  and  I  was  just  behind  Morris,  when  suddenly  we  were 
fired  on  from  ambush.  One  bullet  struck  Morris  at  the 
outer  edge  of  his  left  eye,  cutting  a  trench  along  the  side 
of  his  temple.  The  direction  of  the  shots  was  from  in  front, 
but  no  one  saw  the  flash  or  smoke.  Gibson  ordered  us  back 
one  hundred  yards,  where  a  turn  in  the  roadway  took  us 
out  of  range.  We  could  now  distinctly  hear  the  shouting 
and  tumtdt  of  the  Federals,  who  were  swimming  their  horses 
across  the  river. 

Gibson  ordered  me  and  two  others  to  dismount  and  ad- 
vance cautiously  through  the  thicket  in  order  to  find  out 
something  of  their  strength.  I  had  not  gone  a  hundred  yards 
through  the  dense  undergrowth  when  a  gun  was  fired  and  a 
bullet  came  through  the  saplings  alarmingly  near.  I  fell 
flat  on  the  ground  for  safety  and  peered  through  the  bushes 
in  the  direction  from  which  it  came,  but  saw  no  one.  I  then 
crawled  forward  some  thirty  or  forty  yards  farther,  when  a 
second  shot  rang  out,  and  the  missile  came  my  way.  I 
could  still  see  no  one,  and  was  in  about  as  unhappy  a  frame 
of  mind  as  was  possible,  when  Gibson  called  us  back;  and 
we  ran  to  our  horses,  mounted,  and  hurried  back  to  report 
that  the  enemy  was  over  and  advancing  in  force.  As  we 
reached  the  upland  a  vidette  was  posted  with  orders  to  fire 
as  soon  as  the  Yankee  cavalry  came  in  sight.  Within  five 
minutes  of  the  time  we  reached  the  command  our  picket 
came  dashing  in  with  a  large  body  of  Federals  at  his  heels. 

A  mile  or  more  back  from  the  river  we  formed  in  line  of 
battle  and  skirmished  heavily  and  continuously,  gradually 
retiring  until  nearly  dark.  By  this  time  General  Wheeler 
had  assembled  a  division  of  cavalry  and  lined  them  in  a 
field  in  which  the  wheat  had  just  been  cut  and  shocked. 

231 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  enemy's  cavalry  were  now  in  full  view,  and  it  seemed 
as  if  we  were  to  have  a  regular  cavalry  battle  in  this  great 
open  space.  We  advanced  in  echelon,  firing  by  regiments 
as  we  came  into  line.  It  was  a  very  beautiful  sight;  but 
the  two  lines  of  battle  were  not  sufficiently  near  each  other 
to  do  effective  work.  I  afterward  learned  that  we  were 
manoeuvering  to  lead  them  into  a  trap,  but  the  Federal  com- 
mander (Long)  was  too  smart  to  be  caught,  and  withdrew 
his  forces  for  the  night. 

We  left  the  Federals  going  into  camp,  and  with  a  light 
line  of  pickets  to  watch  them  through  the  night  our  main 
column  trudged  on  in  the  retreat  southward  until  twelve 
o'clock,  when  we  rested  until  daylight,  only  to  resume  the 
weary,  disheartening  march  up  the  Cumberland  Mountains, 
across  this  broad  plateau,  in  rainy  weather  and  along  muddy 
roads,  until  we  reached  Bridgeport,  Alabama,  late  one  night. 
Here  the  Memphis  &  Charleston  Railroad  bridge  over  the 
Tennessee  had  been  floored  for  the  passage  of  troops.  There 
was  no  side  protection,  but  the  floor  was  sufficiently  wide 
for  ordinary  safety  if  one  would  keep  between  the  rails. 
To  prevent  accident  we  were  ordered  to  dismount  and  lead 
our  horses  single  file ;  but  I  was  so  worn  out  I  rode  my  horse 
all  the  way  over.     The  rear-guard  burned  the  bridge. 

Little  of  interest  occurred  for  the  next  few  days;  and, 
worn  out  with  the  constant  marching  and  fighting,  loss  of 
sleep,  and  daily  rains  which  kept  us  wet  and  chilled,  we 
proceeded  at  leisure  down  Big  Will's  Valley  to  a  recruiting- 
camp  near  Alexandria,  Alabama. 

I  recall  but  one  moment  of  merriment  in  all  this  trying 
experience,  and  this  was  due  to  a  wholly  unexpected  reply 
our  orderly  sergeant  received  to  an  impertinent  question 
he  was  wont  to  put  to  any  lone  and  unprotected  straggler. 

232 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

Sam  Russell,  whose  experience  of  several  years  as  conductor 
of  a  freight-train  on  the  Memphis  &  Charleston  Railroad 
had  afforded  a  fairly  good  training  for  the  hardships  of  a 
campaign,  was  not  only  a  good  soldier,  but  a  great  wag  and 
"bluffer."  On  this  particular  occasion  we  were  sitting  by 
the  roadside  upon  the  top  rails  of  a  worm-fence,  giving  our 
horses  and  ourselves  a  rest,  while  another  cavalry  command 
was  passing.  Trailing  behind  the  last  regiment  came  the 
inevitable  stragglers,  and  at  the  very  last  there  jogged  by 
on  a  raw-boned,  flea-bitten  gray  nag  one  of  the  most  for- 
lorn-looking specimens  of  a  soldier  I  had  ever  seen.  The 
roads  were  so  sloppy  and  the  horse  so  bespattered  with 
mud  that  the  natural  color  was  only  recognizable  on  a 
limited  area  behind  the  saddle. 

The  cavalryman  had  covered  himself  as  well  as  he  could 
with  a  homespun,  copperas-dyed  blanket  which  was  water- 
soaked.  The  blanket  reached  to  within  about  a  foot  of 
his  shoe-tops,  and  from  his  ankles  up  the  skin  was  bare, 
for  his  trousers  had  crawled  upward  to  parts  unknown. 
He  wore  a  Confederate  wool  hat,  which  may  originally  have 
been  gray,  but  sun  and  rain  and  time  had  changed  it  to  a 
dirty  ash  color.  The  stiffening  had  long  been  washed  out, 
and  the  brim  flopped  up  and  down  with  the  movements  of 
the  horse.  He  looked  neither  to  the  right  nor  to  the  left  as 
he  passed  and  paid  no  attention  to  the  remarks  about  him- 
self or  his  horse  until  Sergeant  Russell's  voice  rang  out  in 
an  extra  loud  and  insulting  tone:  "Hello,  Mister!  Are  you 
a  married  man  or  a  dog?" 

The  pitcher  had  gone  to  the  well  one  time  too  often ;  for 

this  cavalier,  the  moment  he  heard  the  insulting  query, 

reined  his  horse  and,  carrying  his  right  hand  back  in  the 

direction  of  the  six-shooter  which  he  was  keeping  dry  under 

16  233 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

his  blanket,  faced  the  sergeant  and  said  in  a  voice  which 
could  be  heard  beyond  our  company  limit :  "  I'm  a  dog,  G — - 

d you!     What  are  you?"     And  Sam,   abashed,   red  in 

the  face,  and  crestfallen,  stood  convicted;  for  we  all  knew 
he,  too,  was  a  bachelor.  The  roar  of  laughter  which  swept 
along  the  line  was  like  a  ray  of  sunshine  on  a  cold,  gray 
winter's  day.  We  cheered  the  stranger,  gave  him  a  vote  of 
thanks,  and  proffered  an  escort,  which  he  gracefully  declined. 
Henceforth  this  question  was  erased  from  the  sergeant's  cat- 
echism. 

From  Trenton  I  made  a  two  days'  ride  over  the  moun- 
tains to  my  home  to  get  the  horse  I  had  brought  out  of 
Kentucky  in  1862,  rested  there  three  days,  and  then  said 
good-by  to  my  parents  for  two  years  and  to  the  dear  old 
home  and  faithful  "black  mammy"  for  ever.  The  Federals 
burned  our  village  in  1864  and  took  mammy  and  her  chil- 
dren to  Nashville,  where  they  all  died  in  an  epidemic  of 
smallpox.  The  policy  of  devastation  was  carried  out  over 
practically  all  of  northern  Alabama;  Bridgeport,  Steven- 
son, Bellefont,  Scottsboro,  Larkinsville,  Woodville,  Camden, 
Vienna,  and  a  number  of  other  prosperous  villages  were 
burned,  and  there  are  no  official  reports  of  these  transac- 
tions. 

At  Alexandria  we  were  comfortably  stationed  for  the  rest 
of  July  and  until  the  last  week  in  August.  There  was  plenty 
of  growing  com  in  this  section,  ripe  enough  to  make  good 
roasting-ears  for  the  troopers  and  to  be  fed  green  to  the 
horses.  We  bivouacked  in  a  piece  of  wooded  land  which 
had  been  part  of  one  of  Jackson's  old  battle-grounds  in  the 
Creek  War.  There  were  still  traces  of  the  trenches  and 
breastworks  which  had  sheltered  him  when  driven  by  these 
warlike  Indians,  who  later  took  refuge  and  fortified  them- 

234 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

selves  in  the  Horseshoe  Bend  of  the  Tallapoosa  near  by, 
where  they  were  exterminated. 

We  had  little  to  do  but  feed  and  curry  our  horses,  do 
camp  duty,  and  drill  two  hours  a  day.  One  of  those  drill- 
days,  at  least,  I  remember  was  excessively  hot,  and  few 
places  can  get  hotter  than  an  open  field  from  which  the 
grain  has  been  cut,  with  a  midday  sun  overhead  in  mid- 
August  and  in  middle  Alabama!  The  full  regiment  was  in 
line,  and  we  had  been  doing  all  sorts  of  stunts — advancing 
and  firing  by  companies,  in  echelon,  skirmish  drill,  flanking 
drill,  etc. — until  men  and  horses  were  superheated,  restless, 
and  half  mad  at  any  and  every  thing,  and  thinking  that 
nothing  on  earth  was  worth  while  at  that  particular  moment 
but  a  drink  of  cool  water  and  the  shade  of  a  tree.  Dividing 
two  of  these  hot  stubble-fields  was  the  wreckage  of  a  half- 
rotted,  tumble-down,  old  worm-fence,  not  over  six  rails  high 
at  any  place,  and  these  so  rickety  that  if  our  horses'  hoofs 
struck  them  they  would  break  and  fly  in  pieces. 

Colonel  Russell  ordered  a  charge,  with  this  fence  as  the 
imaginary  line  of  the  enemy.  As  he  rode  along  our  front, 
with  his  long  auburn  beard  and  his  gray  uniform  frock-coat 
buttoned  up  to  the  chin — and  this  was  one  of  several  of  his 
eccentricities,  for  it  never  grew  hot  enough  to  make  him 
unbutton  his  coat — we  privates  thought  he  was  the  hottest- 
looking  thing  we  had  ever  seen  on  horseback.  The  "enemy  " 
was  three  hundred  yards  in  front;  the  bugle  sounded  "trot," 
then  "gallop,"  then  "charge."  Yelling  like  Comanches,  we 
rode  over  the  fence,  briers  and  all,  acquiring  so  much  mo- 
mentum that  no  private  could  stop  his  horse  until  he  reached 
that  tree  in  camp  to  which  his  mount  was  habitually  tethered. 

The  officers  came  in  later,  at  a  walk.  There  was  some 
small  talk  about  having  us  lined  up  in  front  of  the  colonel's 

235 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

tent,  but  we  all  held  out  that  our  horses  were  crazy  for 
water  and  had  run  away,  and  couldn't  be  stopped  until  they 
reached  camp.  The  brave  old  colonel  (who  quit  medicine 
and  surgery  to  command  a  cavalry  brigade)  forgave  us. 

The  unconquerable  spirit  in  that  man  never  gave  up. 
When  Forrest  surrendered  at  Gainesville  he  rode  away  to 
the  West,  crossed  over  into  Mexico,  and  settled  at  Cordova, 
where  he  resumed  the  practice  of  medicine,  accumulated  a 
large  fortune,  and  died  only  a  few  years  ago.  He  sent  me, 
only  a  little  while  before  he  died,  the  picture  reproduced 
in  my  Life  oj  Forrest,  and  with  it  a  characteristic  letter 
wondering  how  I  could  "live  in  a  land  governed  by  Yankees !" 
In  this  letter  he  said:  "The  Confederate  army  was  not 
whipped;   it  simply  wore  itself  out  whipping  the  Yankees." 


XVIII 

CHICKAMAUGA,  WHERE  THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THE  SOUTHERN 
CONFEDERACY  WAS  WON  AND  LOST — THE  REAL  CRISIS  OF 
THE    CIVIL    WAR 

Late  in  August  we  saddled  up  for  the  march  to  Chatta- 
nooga. Two  nights  before  we  were  to  start  my  horse, 
tethered  with  a  rope,  got  it  tangled  under  one  of  his  pasterns 
and  was  thrown  lame.  For  three  days  of  the  march  I 
walked  and  led  my  mount:  they  were  long  and  tiresome 
days.  Fortunately,  the  command  moved  leisurely,  to  save 
the  horses — about  twenty  miles  a  day.  By  starting  off  at 
three  or  four  in  the  morning  I  would  be  passed  by  the  column 
about  noon,  and  would  catch  up  when  they  bivouacked 
for  the  night,  usually  long  after  dark.  On  the  third  day  I 
made  a  temporary  exchange  with  a  trooper  who  was  con- 
tent to  keep  my  disabled  mount  with  the  wagons,  and  se- 
cured in  this  way  a  first-class  horse  which  I  rode  all  through 
the  Chickamauga  campaign. 

It  was  on  this  march  that  an  attempt  was  made  to  col- 
lect all  the  carbines  and  most  modern  and  effective  giins  in 
the  regiment  and  give  them  to  the  two  flanking  companies. 
I  had  bought  my  Burnside  carbine  with  fifty  dollars  given 
my  by  my  married  sister,  and  I  resented  the  order  to  turn 
it  in  for  a  long  and  heavy  Austrian  rifle.  It  so  happened 
that  a  dear  friend  was  ordnance  officer,  and  when  the  in- 
spection was  made  he  allowed  me  to  retain  my  carbine. 

237 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

We  reached  Lafayette,  Georgia,  September  ist,  and  were 
assigned  to  active  duty  at  once,  to  watch  the  gaps  in  Look- 
out Mountain,  through  which  we  were  daily  expecting  the 
advancing  columns  of  Rosecrans's  army  to  descend  into 
Georgia.  Two  of  his  three  corps  were  already  south  of  the 
Tennessee  and  were  climbing  the  mountains.  The  other 
was  in  sight  of  Chattanooga. 

My  first  duty  was  with  four  other  men  to  picket  a  defile 
through  which  one  of  the  roads  across  Lookout  Mountain 
led  into  the  Chickamauga  Valley.  Our  orders  were  to  re- 
main there  until  driven  in  by  the  enemy.  As  we  started 
out  with  two  days'  rations,  and  as  it  was  six  days  before 
the  enemy  appeared,  we  were  soon  left  to  our  own  resources 
for  subsistence.  The  Confederate  cavalry  was  used  to  that. 
Near  our  post  there  were  two  small  farm-houses  about  half 
a  mile  apart.  In  one,  a  double  cabin  of  hewn  logs,  there 
lived  three  ladies — a  widowed  mother,  a  married  and  an  un- 
married daughter.  The  husband  of  the  daughter  was  away 
in  our  army,  and  these  women  unaided  had  cultivated  a 
small  field  of  several  acres  in  corn.  As  it  was  all  they  had 
to  live  on,  we  took  what  we  needed  from  another  farm  owned 
by  an  able-bodied  man  who  had  managed  to  stay  at  home. 
Within  two  weeks  the  battle  of  Chickamauga  had  been 
fought,  in  part  over  this  very  ground,  and  the  next  day  I 
rode  by  this  spot.  Where  the  field  of  com  which  we  would 
not  touch  had  stood  there  was  not  a  stalk  left,  not  even  a 
fence-rail.  The  trodden  ground  was  checkered  with  the 
charred  embers  of  camp-fires  where  the  tents  of  the  Federal 
infantry  had  stood  in  rows,  and  nothing  but  the  chimneys 
remained  to  tell  where  stood  the  log  house  which  had  shel- 
tered those  three  lone  women. 

By  September  12  th  a  corps  of  Union  infantry  under  Gen- 

238 


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WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

eral  McCook  and  a  strong  body  of  cavalry  under  Gen- 
eral Stanley  came  over  Lookout  Mountain  to  Alpine, 
Georgia,  and  drove  our  pickets  back.  Then  two  other  di- 
visions of  infantry  advanced  through  the  gaps  in  Pigeon 
Mountain,  and  we  took  part  in  an  effort  to  capture  these 
commands,  which  at  that  moment  were  widely  separated; 
but  owing  to  the  lack  of  co-operation  on  the  part  of  the  Con- 
federate generals  the  movement  failed,  and  the  Federals 
were  at  last  permitted  to  concentrate  their  forces  on  the 
field  of  Chickamauga. 

In  this  movement  to  capture  McCook' s  corps  it  was  my 
good  fortune  to  pass  safely  through  a  very  unusual  experi- 
ence. Starting  in  the  afternoon  from  Lafayette,  our  di- 
vision marched  all  night  in  the  direction  of  Alpine.  Toward 
morning  a  staff-officer  stationed  on  the  side  of  the  road  as 
we  filed  by  repeated  to  each  company  the  order  to  cease  talk- 
ing and  to  make  as  little  noise  as  possible.  At  four  we  were 
halted,  and  word  came  from  the  front  down  the  line,  re- 
peated from  regiment  to  regiment,  that  "a  volunteer  was 
wanted  at  the  head  of  the  column  who  would  go  where  he 
was  ordered."  My  curiosity  was  aroused,  and  I  said  to 
Lieutenant  Jack  Weatherly,  my  messmate,  that  I  woiild 
go  with  him  and  see  what  was  wanted.  It  was  very  dark, 
and  there  was  no  little  difficulty  in  riding  through  the  com- 
mand, which  packed  the  narrow  country  road.  The  gen- 
eral in  command  asked  me  if  I  was  ' '  willing  to  go  inside  the 
enemy's  lines,"  and  I  replied,  "If  it  was  necessary  I  would 
try  to  do  what  was  required,  provided  I  could  wear  my 
uniform,  but  that  I  wouldn't  go  as  a  spy."  To  this  he  said: 
"All  right.  I  want  you  to  carry  a  message  to  some  troops 
that  have  passed  around  their  flank,  and  are  now  coming 
up  in  their  rear.     It  is  important  that  they  be  headed  off 

239 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  ordered  to  return  by  the  route  they  traveled.  To  reach 
them  in  time  you  will  have  to  pass  through  the  Federal 
lines." 

He  gave  me  some  general  directions  as  to  about  where  I 
ought  to  find  this  detachment  at  daylight,  and  turned  me 
over  to  a  guide,  a  farmer  who  lived  near  by,  who  agreed  to 
accompany  me  to  where  the  road  turned  off  that  I  must 
follow.  As  the  mission  promised  to  be  more  than  ordinarily 
risky,  I  stripped  my  horse  and  self  of  everything  not  abso- 
lutely necessary,  and  with  the  exception  of  a  small  New 
Testament  which  my  mother  had  handed  me  as  I  left  home 
for  the  war,  with  the  injunction  that  I  should  read  at  least 
one  chapter  every  day,  and  my  trusted  army  six-shooter, 
I  turned  over  all  my  personal  belongings  to  Jack.  The  in- 
congruity of  associating  a  Testament  and  a  six-shooter  did 
not  occur  to  my  mind  then  as  it  has  since.  While  this  was 
going  on  some  one  fastened  on  an  extra  surcingle  to  make 
my  saddle  more  secure. 

As  our  good  colonel,  whose  interest  in  this  enterprise  was 
evidently  aroused,  rode  along  with  Jack,  the  guide,  and  my- 
self for  a  short  distance,  he  said:  "If  you  get  through  all 
right,  I'll  see  that  you  get  as  long  a  furlough  as  you  want"; 
and  then  he  and  Lieutenant  Weatherly  said  "Good  luck!" 
and  turned  back.  About  a  quarter  of  a  mile  farther  on  the 
farmer  and  I  came  to  where  the  roads  forked.  I  followed 
my  guide  a  few  yards  along  the  one  to  the  right,  which  I  was 
to  talce.  He  told  me  it  was  about  half  a  mile  down  that  road 
to  where  the  Federal  pickets  were  stationed.  He  had  seen 
them  there  between  sundown  and  dark.  After  getting  from 
him  what  information  I  could  as  to  the  character  of  the 
road  ahead  of  me,  I  went  on  alone.  It  was  now  between 
four  and  five  o'clock  and  very  dark. 

240 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Having  become  accustomed  to  the  darkness,  I  could  make 
out  the  opening  of  the  roadway  a  few  yards  ahead  chiefly 
because  it  was  accentuated  by  the  blackness  of  the  forest 
on  either  side.  This  was  in  my  favor,  as  was  the  fact  that 
the  road  was  sandy  and  soft  and  my  horse's  hoof -beats  at  a 
fast  walk  were  scarcely  audible.  The  only  sound  that  I 
did  hear — and  it  is  indelibly  registered  in  the  memory  cells 
occupied  by  this  experience — was  the  weird  note  of  one  of 
the  small  screech-owls  which  are  common  in  this  section, 
the  cry  of  which  no  one  is  apt  to  forget  who  hears  it  for  the 
first  time.  I  had  heard  them  hundreds  of  times,  but  never 
under  just  such  surroundings. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  I  appreciated  the  dangers 
which  this  mission  involved,  but  the  most  astonishing  fea- 
ture of  the  psychology  of  this  moment  was  that  I  found  my- 
self in  a  condition  of  mind  in  which  the  value  of  life  became 
a  secondary  consideration.  It  had  never  come  to  me  be- 
fore; it  never  has  since.  In  that  brief  period  the  stars  were 
not  far  away,  for  I  had  eliminated  self.  The  one  absorbing 
thought  which  took  possession  of  me  was  that  my  mother 
would  be  proud  of  me  for  trying  to  do  my  duty.  I  did  not 
intend  to  be  stopped,  and  with  a  swift,  game,  and  powerful 
horse  the  chances  were  in  my  favor.  Riding  into  their  lines 
would  disarm  suspicion,  and  if  I  could  get  by  the  outpost 
without  alarm  the  rest  would  be  easy.  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  that  I  would  ride  by  or  over  anything  or  anybody 
who  got  in  the  way,  and  when  hailed  would  say,  as  I  gal- 
loped by,  that  I  was  a  courier  with  important  despatches. 

When  I  had  gone  about  the  distance  which  should  bring 
me  near  the  pickets,  as  indicated  by  the  guide,  I  took  my 
pistol  from  the  holster,  cocked  it,  and  with  the  finger  inside 
the  guard  held  it  ready  for  instant  use.     Catching  a  short 

241 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

hold  on  the  bridle,  I  leaned  well  down  on  my  horse's  neck 
and  urged  him  into  a  slow  canter.  He  had  not  gone  more 
than  two  hundred  yards  at  this  gait  when  he  suddenly  raised 
his  head  and  seemed  about  to  shy,  and  then  not  twenty 
feet  ahead  I  recognized  the  dark  figures  of  two  men  as  they 
vanished  from  the  open  roadway  into  the  dark  bushes  to  my 
left.  They  must  have  spoken  or  challenged,  and  I  doubt- 
less replied;  but  the  moment  I  saw  them  I  gave  my  horse 
the  spurs,  and  he  bounded  over  or  by  them,  and  on  the 
wings  of  the  wind  in  another  instant  he  and  his  rider  were 
lost  from  their  view.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  my 
lucky  escape  was  due  to  lack  of  vigilance  on  the  part  of  the 
pickets.  My  horse  made  little  or  no  sound  in  the  deep, 
soft  sand.  Once  past  them,  if  they  fired  they  endangered 
their  own  men. 

Another  interesting  feature  of  the  psychology  of  this  in- 
cident is  that,  while  every  detail  up  to  this  moment  is  dis- 
tinctly and  indelibly  registered,  I  have  never  been  clear  as 
to  what  occurred  for  the  next  few  minutes.  The  next  thing 
I  remember  is  that  as  the  day  dawned  I  was  racing  along, 
and  saw  from  the  top  of  a  hill  off  in  the  valley  below,  prob- 
ably a  mile  away,  what  looked  like  a  heavy  fog.  As  it  had 
not  rained  for  several  weeks  and  the  roads  were  very  dusty, 
I  realized  that  it  was  not  fog,  but  a  cloud  of  dust  made  by 
moving  troops. ^  Coming  in  plain  sight,  I  was  overjoyed 
to  find  that  they  were  our  troops,  and  to  the  officer  in  com- 
mand I  delivered  my  message. 

1  A  drought  prevailed  for  nearly  two  months  at  this  time  in  1863.  While 
we  were  on  picket,  early  in  September,  the  Federal  corps  crossing  Lookout 
Mountain  raised  such  clouds  of  dust  that  fifteen  miles  away  their  line  of 
march  could  be  made  out.  So  thick  was  the  dust  on  the  battle-field  at  Chicka- 
mauga  that  at  times  it  enveloped  and  hid  the  troops  like  a  fog,  and  the  forest 
trees  far  removed  from  the  roads  were  white  with  the  dust  that  settled  on  the 
leaves.    See  the  official  reports  immediately  after  the  battle. 

242 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

When  I  got  back  to  the  regiment  our  colonel  was  as  good 
as  his  word,  and  told  me  I  was  free  to  go  home ;  but  we  knew 
a  great  battle  was  impending,  and  I  stayed  to  see  it. 

I  must  relate  a  very  extraordinary  experience  which  has 
an  association  with  this  night  ride.  In  November,  191 2, 
forty-nine  years  after  it  was  made,  I  happened  to  be  in 
Chattanooga,  and,  wandering  along  one  of  the  hill  streets 
at  an  hour  so  early  that  very  few  people  were  stirring,  I  saw 
following  me  at  a  short  distance  another  early  riser.  Feeling 
in  a  conversational  mood,  I  slackened  my  pace,  and  as  he 
came  up  I  remarked,  "Fine  town,"  to  which  he  courteous- 
ly responded  with  real  Chattanooga  pride,  "Yes,  indeed!" 
"Native?"  I  asked.  "No  sir;  bom  in  Madison  County, 
Alabama."  Then  I  continued:  "We  came  near  being 
twins.  I'm  from  Marshall."  He  inquired  my  name,  and 
I  replied:  "You  don't  know  of  me,  but  you  must  know  of 
my  father,  Judge  Louis  Wyeth."  As  yet  we  had  scarcely 
looked  at  each  other;  but  when  he  heard  my  father's  name 
he  turned  quickly  toward  me  and  stopped  so  suddenly  that 
I  did  the  same.  In  a  voice  that  betrayed  evident  feeling 
he  said:  "Then  you  are  Dr.  Wyeth  from  New  York;  John 
A.  Wyeth,  Company  I,  Fourth  Alabama  Cavalry.  My 
God!  I  haven't  seen  you  since  that  night  in  1863  when 
you  volunteered  to  go  into  the  Yankee  lines  for  General 
Wheeler" — and  he  continued  with  some  details  which  for 
the  time  being  had  escaped  my  memory.  My  accidental 
acquaintance  turned  out  to  be  Mr.  G.  G.  Lilly,  of  Chatta- 
nooga, a  well-known  citizen  and  a  gallant  soldier  of  our 
regiment  to  the  end  of  the  war.  I  did  not  suppose  tmtil 
then  that  there  was  living  a  human  being  who  knew  any- 
thing personally  about  this  incident. 

The  hot  weather,  the  scarcity  of  water,  and  the  dusty 

243 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

roads  were  very  trj^ing  to  the  columns  of  infantry  that  were 
being  rapidly  concentrated  near  Lafayette,  Georgia.  In  one 
of  the  divisions  that  passed  my  post  I  noticed  the  men  were 
barefoot,  their  shoes  swung  across  the  barrels  of  their  gtms. 
The  road  here  was  sandy  and  soft,  and  they  were  saving 
their  footgear  for  rougher  going.  They  would  march  fifteen 
minutes  or  so  and  rest  five,  lying  flat  on  the  ground.  In  one 
of  the  Texas  regiments  I  recognized  a  young  lad,  "part 
Cherokee,"  with  whom  I  had  gone  to  school  in  Alabama. 

For  ten  days  before  the  battle  we  were  almost  constantly 
in  touch  with  the  enemy's  cavalry,  and  on  September  17  th 
we  had  a  Uvely  skirmish  in  McLenmore's  Cove  near  Cat- 
lett's  Gap,  which  for  a  while  seemed  to  be  the  precursor  of  a 
general  engagement,  but  none  in  our  company  were  hurt. 
Part  of  this  action  took  place  in  a  stretch  of  open  farm-land 
with  half  a  dozen  houses  in  sight.  Both  sides  were  using 
artillery,  and,  naturally,  the  shells  produced  great  consterna- 
tion among  the  home  people.  One  of  the  houses  centrally 
located  had  a  cellar  for  refuge,  and  toward  it  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  neighborhood  was  running  to  dis- 
appear within  like  bees  darting  into  a  hive  at  the  sudden 
approach  of  a  shower. 

On  the  late  afternoon  of  September  i8th,  when  the  great 
battle  of  Chickamauga  opened,  we  were  posted  on  the  ex- 
treme left  of  the  Confederate  line,  about  two  miles  from 
Crawfish  Spring,  in  contact  with  Mitchell's  and  Crook's  di- 
visions of  the  Union  cavalry.  On  the  19th  the  far-away 
thunder  of  artillery  told  the  story  of  the  hard  fighting 
that  was  going  on  where  the  infantry  were  at  work.  We 
spent  the  day  skirmishing  and  sharp-shooting  with  their 
cavalry  advance,  chiefly  in  observation.  For  protection  we 
made  defenses  of  rails  and  logs,  and,  until  the  ruse  was  dis- 

244 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

covered,  amused  ourselves  by  placing  a  hat  on  a  ramrod  and 
slowly  elevating  it,  as  if  some  one  were  peering  over  the 
rails  to  shoot.  Meanwhile  our  best  long-range  rifle-shots, 
with  their  guns  thrust  through  cracks  and  well  protected, 
trained  their  sights  on  the  trees  and  stumps  from  behind 
which  the  Federals  were  firing.  No  sooner  would  the  hat 
rise  high  enough  to  be  seen  than  their  blue  arms  and  shoul- 
ders would  be  exposed  to  our  fire.  Just  in  front  of  our  posi- 
tion was  a  small  field  of  corn,  and,  as  we  needed  some  for 
our  horses  and  ourselves — for  parched  corn  was  our  chief 
provender  at  this  time — when  there  was  a  lull  in  the  firing 
several  of  us  crawled  on  our  hands  and  knees,  trailing  our 
forage-sacks,  and  reached  the  corn  rows  without  being  seen. 
The  watchful  enemy,  observing  the  tops  of  the  stalks  in 
commotion,  turned  loose  on  us  so  effectively  that  the  com 
detail  suspended  operations  until  night-time. 

Early  on  Sunday,  September  20th,  some  of  the  Federal 
long-range  guns  began  to  land  bullets  in  our  bivouac,  and 
one  or  two  horses  were  hit.  The  firing  came  from  a  log 
cabin  about  four  hundred  yards  across  a  field  which  was 
now  grown  up  with  a  rich  crop  of  high  ragweed.  Some  ten  of 
us  volunteered  to  drive  them  out  or  capture  them,  and  I 
was  placed  in  command  of  the  detachment.  In  order  to 
get  into  the  field  of  weeds  through  which  it  was  necessary 
to  crawl  to  keep  out  of  sight,  we  made  a  slight  detour  and 
came  up  behind  a  dense  copse  of  bushes,  where  we  loosened 
a  lower  rail  and  crawled  through  the  fence  without  being 
seen.  As  it  was  not  safe  to  try  to  rush  the  cabin  from  the 
front,  we  made  our  way  cautiously  to  the  back  of  the  bams 
or  stables  of  a  farm-house  two  or  three  hundred  yards  from 
the  nest  of  the  sharp-shooters  in  the  log  cabin.  It  was  still 
very  early,  for  as  I  came  to  the  open  back  door  of  the  farm- 

245 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

house  I  saw  a  lady  and  two  children  at  the  breakfast-table. 
When  she  saw  me  she  started  up  and,  recognizing  my  gray 
jacket,  in  evident  alarm  exclaimed,  "The  Yankee  pickets 
are  in  the  road  by  our  front  gate."  To  my  inquiry  of  how 
many  there  were  and  how  long  they  had  been  there  she 
said  a  company  of  cavalry  came  the  day  before  and  left 
some  of  their  men  on  picket.  I  crept  along  the  wall  of  the 
house,  peeped  cautiously  around  the  comer,  but  saw  no 
one,  and  told  her  she  must  have  been  mistaken.  She  as- 
sured me  she  had  seen  them  since  daylight,  I  then  sig- 
naled the  others  to  come  up,  and  as  we  reached  the  road  we 
found  plenty  of  fresh  tracks  made  since  the  dew  had  fallen. 
There  was  no  mistaking  these  footprints,  for  they  were  made 
by  the  square-toed  regulation  shoe  of  the  United  States  army. 
We  now  quickly  formed  in  a  line  about  ten  feet  apart 
and  ran  through  the  woods  toward  the  cabin,  taking  it  on 
the  flank  and  rear.  Not  a  word  was  spoken  as  we  rushed 
ahead  with  our  guns  cocked  and  ready.  I  expected  every 
moment  to  see  gun-smoke  jet  out  of  the  cracks  in  the  cabin ; 
but  when  we  reached  it  it  was  empty.  A  fresh  fire  was 
burning,  and  we  found  some  blankets,  cooking-utensils — 
among  these  a  coffee-pot,  for  which  we  had  little  use — and 
a  small  sack  of  salt  and  other  plunder,  which  the  Federals 
had  hurriedly  abandoned.  General  Martin,  who  was  watch- 
ing us  through  his  field-glasses,  met  us  half-way  across  the 
field  as  we  were  returning,  and  upon  my  report  ordered  the 
ever-reliable  Lieutenant  John  Gibson  to  ride  out  with  some 
twenty  men  and  see  what  was  up.  He  came  back  within 
an  hour  with  information  which  caused  General  Wheeler 
to  move  his  whole  command  some  two  miles  or  more  in 
great  haste  to  Glass's  Mill  on  the  Chickamauga,  about  a 
mile  from  Crawfish  Spring. 

246 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

We  had  hardly  reached  this  spot  when  we  struck  a  big 
body  of  their  cavalry,  and  a  lively  fight  was  precipitated. 
One  of  our  batteries  went  immediately  into  action  just  in 
front  of  our  position,  and  we  were  posted  to  guard  it.  The 
Federal  guns  about  five  hundred  yards  away  soon  got  the 
range  and  threw  a  lot  of  shrapnel,  which  kept  us  on  the 
anxious  seat  for  fully  an  hour,  for  they  frequently  burst  up 
in  front  of  us,  and  the  fragments  came  whirring  down  our 
way.  One  piece  about  two  inches  long  struck  the  ground 
right  by  my  horse,  and  I  dismounted  and  picked  it  up  and 
sent  it  home  to  my  mother  as  a  souvenir.  Had  we  been 
fifty  yards  farther  back  we  woiild  have  been  fully  protected 
behind  the  crest  of  the  ridge  on  which  we  were  formed. 
After  what  seemed  an  interminable  time  we  were  ordered 
back  this  far,  and  a  detail  was  made  to  parch  corn.  Here 
two  flour-biscuits  and  a  small  piece  of  bacon  were  issued 
to  each  man.  For  the  three  days  of  this  battle  no  other 
ration  than  this  was  given  to  our  command — we  were  sub- 
sisting on  parched  com.  After  about  two  hours  of  fighting 
the  Eighth  Texas  got  on  the  flank  of  the  Federals  and  gave 
them  a  wild  chase  in  the  direction  of  Lee  &  Gordon's  Mill, 
in  which  we  all  joined. 

In  this  engagement  a  lot  of  prisoners  were  captured,  and 
several  of  our  dead  and  wounded  were  brought  in  on  the 
horses,  as  we  carried  no  stretchers  and  an  ambulance  was 
unknown.  I  saw  one  body  held  across  the  lap  and  legs  of 
one  of  the  Texas  troopers,  the  limp  arms  and  legs  dangling 
nearly  to  the  ground.  I  was  told  it  was  his  brother,  who  had 
been  instantly  killed.  That  and  another  scene  I  witnessed 
at  Glass's  Mill  still  remain  vividly  in  mind.  A  captured 
Union  cavalry  officer  who  had  been  shot  through  the  bones 
of  one  foot  came  in  limping  along  with  the  other  dismounted 

247 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

captives.  I  was  standing  close  by  when  a  ranger  who 
had  been  one  of  the  captors  said  to  him,  "I  want  your 
boots."  The  officer  had  on  a  magnificent  pair  of  WelHng- 
tons,  and,  as  it  was  useless  to  say  no,  he  sat  down  and  held 
up  the  sound  foot  while  the  Texan  pulled  that  boot  off  and 
tried  it  on.  As  it  was  a  fit,  he  motioned  for  the  other.  When 
the  wounded  man  asked  him  if  he  wouldn't  split  it  so  it 
could  be  pulled  off  without  hurting,  the  ranger  simply 
pulled  it  off  vi  et  armis,  remarking,  "You  reckon  I'm  going 
to  spoil  that  boot?"  It  was  a  pretty  rough  experience,  and 
my  sympathies  were  with  the  unfortunate  prisoner.  Earlier 
in  the  war  this  incident  would  not  have  been  possible,  but 
men  had  become  callous  and  indifferent,  and  then  the 
necessities  of  the  Southern  troops,  half  starved  and  poorly 
clad  as  they  were,  justified  to  some  extent  the  wholesale 
appropriation  of  all  the  belongings  of  their  prisoners. 

The  dead  on  the  field  were  practically  all  stripped  before 
burial,  leaving  only  a  single  undergarment  on.  Right  after 
the  Chickamauga  battle  I  was  detailed  to  gather  up  guns 
and  other  wreckage  on  the  field,  and  the  dead  Federals  were 
scattered  everywhere,  in  some  places  very  thick.  I  counted 
seven  who  had  fallen  in  one  pile,  and  I  recall  but  one  that 
had  not  been  stripped  of  all  outer  clothing;  yet  not  one  of 
all  these  dead  men  but  had  some  covering  left  for  the  sake 
of  modesty. 

This  cavalry  fight  at  Glass's  Mill  and  near  Crawfish  Spring 
ended  about  the  time  that  Longstreet  broke  through  the 
Union  left  wing  and  sent  Crittenden's  and  McCook's  corps 
flying  toward  Thomas  and  Chattanooga,  and  it  may  be 
that  knowledge  of  this  disaster  had  reached  the  Federal 
cavalry  in  our  front  and  hastened  their  departure.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that,  try  as  hard  as  we  could,  we  never  caught  up 

248 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

with  them  any  more  that  day.  Had  General  Wheeler  been 
promptly  informed  of  the  Confederate  success,  we  could 
have  been  immeasurably  more  useful  by  going  from  Glass's 
Mill  straight  to  Cra^Arfish  Spring,  and  on  by  the  direct  road 
into  the  immediate  rear  of  the  flying  Union  infantry,  for 
they  were  disorganized,  and  we  could  have  added  to  the 
rout  and  captured  thousands  whom  our  infantry  could  not 
overhaul.  Instead  of  doing  this  we  moved  along  the  easterly 
bank  of  the  Chickamauga,  and,  although  we  ran  our  horses 
all  the  way,  we  lost  valuable  time  before  we  dismounted  to 
advance  on  foot  at  Lee  &  Gordon's  Mill. 

When  the  order  was  given  to  "dismount  to  fight"  we  were 
called  off  in  "eights"  instead  of  "fours,"  as  usual,  and  when 
we  were  told  that  no  more  men  could  be  spared  to  hold  the 
horses  we  were  convinced  that  a  desperate  situation  was 
at  hand.  It  so  happened  that  number  eight  fell  to  me,  and 
I  made  Nat  Scott — a  boy  younger  than  I  whom  my  parents 
had  lately  sent  from  home  to  bring  me  some  much-needed 
articles  of  clothing — take  my  place  as  horse-holder.  Nat 
asked  for  a  gun  and  a  place  with  us  in  the  battle,  but  I  in- 
sisted that  he  take  my  place  with  the  horses. 

As  we  fell  in  line  for  the  advance,  and  were  loading  and 
capping  our  guns,  a  member  of  my  company,  pale  and 
trembHng,  left  the  line  and  walked  up  to  the  captain.  I 
heard  him  say,  "Captain,  I  can't  go  in."  Captain  James 
L.  Smith,  who  had  succeeded  Dr.  FenneU  in  command  of 
Company  I,  replied,  more  in  pity  than  contempt,  "My  God, 
then  go  back  to  the  horses!"  I  have  often  thought  that  it 
took  more  courage  to  confess  cowardice  than  it  did  to  go 
into  battle.  I  had  seen  shirking  in  many  forms,  but  this 
was  the  first  and  only  instance  I  ever  saw  or  heard  of  in 
which  a  soldier  in  the  presence  of  his  comrades  handed  his 
17  249 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

gun  to  his  captain  and  owned  up  that  he  couldn't  face  the 
music.  There  was  a  man  in  my  company,  sober,  kindly 
disposed,  and  well  behaved,  who  in  one  way  and  another 
dodged  out  of  every  fight  the  company  was  in  and  was 
captured  late  in  1863,  only  because  his  horse  didn't  start 
soon  enough  and  couldn't  run  fast  enough  to  get  him  on 
this  final  occasion  out  of  the  danger-zone  in  time.  This  was 
the  man  I  found  with  the  wagon-train  in  the  rear  of  the 
line  at  Shelbyville  who  jumped  at  the  chance  to  exchange 
his  sound  horse  for  my  crippled  mount.  I  never  learned 
by  what  route  or  under  what  pretext  he  found  his  way  to 
the  rear.  If  he  didn't  "live  to  fight  another  day,"  he  lived, 
and  is  still,  at  a  very  advanced  age,  a  successful  farmer  in 
my  native  state. 

I  have  narrated  elsewhere  the  incident  of  the  lad  who 
remained  flattened  out  as  close  to  the  ground  as  his  anatomy 
could  be  applied  while  all  the  others  were  standing  or  kneel- 
ing and  shooting  at  the  enemy,  and  who,  when  the  retreat 
began,  found  his  feet  so  quickly  that  he  forgot  his  gun,  and, 
like  Ben  Adhem's  name,  led  all  the  rest.  This  was  his  first 
and  only  appearance  on  the  field  of  Mars.  It  became  the 
practice  to  station  reliable  men,  usually  sergeants  or  cor- 
porals, in  the  rear  of  the  advancing  or  forming  line  to  prevent 
shirking.  At  times  some  man  would  take  advantage  of  a 
tree  or  stump,  and,  being  out  of  sight  for  a  moment,  would 
fall  down  and  remain  there  unobserved,  or  "break  like  a 
steer" — to  use  a  homely  phrase — and  run  for  dear  life,  as 
did  a  bully  of  our  county  at  Shiloh.  This  man,  I  was  told 
by  a  comrade  who  didn't  run,  died  from  the  effect  of  this 
stampede;  in  fact,  dropped  dead,  presumably  of  heart  dis- 
ease, while  running. 

Forrest  had  a  standing  order  to  shoot  any  man  who  ran, 

250 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  himself  set  the  example  on  more  than  one  occasion. 
The  late  Colonel  Alfred  H.  Belo,  who  commanded  a  North 
Carolina  regiment  in  Lee's  army,  and  who  ultimately  died 
from  the  effect  of  various  wounds  received  in  the  service, 
told  me  that  at  Gettysburg,  just  as  they  were  about  to  open 
fire,  a  soldier  was  seen  to  take  advantage  of  a  stump  for  a 
few  minutes,  seeing  which  an  officer  shouted  to  his  sergeant, 
"Stay  by  that  man  and  bring  him  on."  One  of  the  most 
rampant  fire-eaters  of  the  exciting  period  just  before  the 
war  became  an  ultra-conservative  when  hostilities  were  de- 
clared, and  finally  was  conscripted.  He  reached  at  dark 
the  regiment  to  which  he  had  been  assigned.  At  daylight 
next  morning  the  Federal  cavalry  stampeded  this  regiment. 
The  raw  recruit  led  the  charge  to  the  rear,  and,  having  a  good 
start,  never  stopped  until  he  reached  home,  where  he  re- 
mained unmolested  until  the  war  was  ended. 

As  we  began  the  advance  our  regiment  was  the  extreme 
left  of  our  line,  and  when  we  struck  the  Chickamauga  we 
waded  the  stream  just  below  the  Lee  &  Gordon  mill- 
dam.  Hoping  to  get  over  dry,  a  number  of  us  started  to 
run  across  the  dam;  but  an  officer  shouted:  "Get  off! 
They're  going  to  rake  you  with  grapeshot,"  and  we  leaped 
into  the  water  like  so  many  bullfrogs.  Where  I  waded  it 
was  not  quite  waist-deep.  We  learned  in  a  few  minutes 
that  we  could  have  gone  over  on  the  dam  dry-shod  and  in 
perfect  safety.  Down  near  the  water's  edge  we  reformed 
our  Hne,  and  as  we  climbed  the  bank  to  the  crest  of  the  ridge 
in  our  front  every  one  was  alert  and  at  great  tension,  for 
we  had  no  thought  but  that  the  ridge  above  was  lined  with 
Federals  who  would  give  us  a  volley  at  any  moment.  I 
know  that  never  in  my  life  have  I  been  so  apprehensive  of 
danger  as  on  this  occasion,  and  I  never  saw  such  determina- 

2>I 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

tion  in  our  men  as  was  in  evidence  here.  I  do  not  believe 
they  could  have  been  stopped  by  any  ordinary  force  or 
resistance.  I  was  profoundly  impressed  with  this  idea  by 
a  remark  made  by  the  man  next  to  me  as  we  clambered  up 
the  hill.  He  said,  "Johnnie,  we've  got  to  whip  'em  right 
now!"  When  we  reached  the  crest  and  peered  over  I  could 
hardly  believe  my  eyes.     There  was  not  a  Yankee  in  sight. 

Pushing  on,  our  company  came  to  a  small  patch  of  an 
acre  or  two  of  sorghum  sugar-cane,  and  as  we  passed  through 
we  cut  the  stalks  in  short  sections  and  filled  our  haversacks 
and  pockets,  eating  it  as  we  advanced.  There  were  every- 
where the  evidences  of  a  hurried  retreat.  The  ground  was 
strewn  with  abandoned  property.  Suddenly  coming  upon 
an  ambulance  in  which  some  musicians  had  piled  their  in- 
struments as  they  joined  in  the  flight,  I  saw  the  mouth  of 
a  big  brass  horn  sticking  out  over  the  tail-board,  and  my 
first  impression  was  that  we  had  run  into  a  masked  battery. 
We  kept  on  in  vain  pursuit  for  several  hours,  and  then  the 
horse-holders  came  up,  and  we  mounted  and  rode  to  Craw- 
fish Spring,  where  the  enemy  had  established  their  head- 
quarters at  first.  Here  we  captured  their  camp  and  hos- 
pitals, and  a  lot  of  prisoners,  mostly  wounded.  It  was  now 
dark,  and  I  fed  my  horse,  crammed  my  haversack  with 
Yankee  hardtack  (a  great  and  rare  luxury  for  us),  filled  a 
fine  tin  canteen  just  acquired  with  water  from  that  glorious 
spring — one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world — and  ate 
real  crackers  and  drank  water  until  I  fell  asleep. 

When  I  awoke  the  sun  was  shining  in  my  face.  My 
trousers — the  only  pair  I  had — soaked  in  wading  the  creek, 
had  held  the  dust  we  raised  as  we  marched  over  that  much- 
trodden  field.  They  were  now  dry  and  as  stiff  as  if  they 
had  been  starched,  and  very  uncomfortable.     I  was  about  to 

252 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

wash  them  and  their  owner  in  the  spring  branch  when  a 
courier  came  with  the  news  that  a  lot  of  wagons  and  some 
Union  troops  had  been  cut  off  the  evening  before  and  had 
taken  refuge  in  Chattanooga  Valley.  Thither  we  rode  as 
fast  as  our  horses  could  carry  us.  It  was  not  much  of  a 
fight,  for  we  outnumbered  them  and  rode  over  them  just 
as  they  had  done  with  us  at  Shelbyville.  In  the  pursuit 
one  of  their  wounded  fell  from  his  horse  right  underfoot, 
and  two  of  our  men  and  the  surgeon  of  our  regiment  stopped 
and  dragged  the  poor  fellow  to  the  side  of  the  road ;  for  the 
dust  was  so  thick  that  it  was  at  times  with  difficulty  that  we 
could  see  the  road-bed,  and  he  would  probably  have  been 
trodden  to  death.  Dr.  Steger  told  me  afterward  that  this 
plucky  and  unfortunate  soldier,  whose  wound  was  evidently 
mortal,  refused  to  be  treated,  and  swore  at  him,  saying,  "No 
damned  rebel  doctor  shall  touch  me."  We  captured  here, 
according  to  the  official  records,  ninety  wagons  full  of 
plunder,  some  four  hundred  prisoners,  and  scattered  the 
remainder  among  the  bluffs  of  Lookout  Mountain. 

General  Wheeler  reported  eighteen  stand  of  colors  taken 
by  us  in  all  our  fighting  in  this  great  battle,  which  began 
on  September  i8th  and  ended  with  this  engagement  on 
Monday  the  21st.  Under  date  of  October  30,  1863,  he 
reports :  ' '  The  results  of  the  operations  of  the  cavalry  under 
my  command  during  the  battle  of  Chickamauga  were,  first, 
guarding  the  left  flank  of  the  army  for  twenty  days  preced- 
ing the  battle  of  Chickamauga,  during  which  time  it  con- 
tinually observed  and  skirmished  with  the  enemy,  repelling 
and  developing  all  his  diversions.  During  the  battle  we 
fought  the  enemy  vigorously  and  successfully,  killing  and 
wounding  large  numbers,  and  capturing  two  thousand  pris- 
oners, one  hundred  wagons  and  teams,  a  large  amount  of 

253 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

other  property,  and  eighteen  stand  of  colors,  all  of  which 
were  turned  over  to  the  proper  authorities."^ 

We  were  now  ordered  to  return  to  the  battle-field  to  pick 
up  arms  and  other  abandoned  property,  as  well  as  stragglers. 
During  the  night  most  of  the  Confederate  dead  had  been 
gathered  in  long  trenches  and  buried;  but  the  Union  dead 
were  still  lying  where  they  fell.  For  its  effect  on  the  sur- 
vivors it  was  the  policy  of  the  victor  to  hide  his  own  losses 
and  let  those  of  the  other  side  be  seen.  On  our  part  of 
the  field,  cannon,  guns,  swords,  sabres,  drums,  brass  horns, 
wagons,  caissons,  hats,  cartridge  and  cap  boxes,  coats,  can- 
teens, and  all  the  impedimenta  of  a  great  and  well-equip- 
ped army  were  scattered  through  the  woods.  Beneath 
brush-piles  or  fallen  tree-tops  or  from  behind  logs  we  were 
never  surprised  to  find  one  or  more  frightened  and  dejected 
soldiers  in  blue,  who  would  emerge  with  a  hand  raised  in 
token  of  surrender.  At  the  "Little  School  House"  (now  a 
well-marked  historical  spot,  where  so  many  regimental 
monuments  are  clustered)  I  counted  sixteen  dead  Federals 
in  an  area  so  small  that  half  of  this  number  were  touching 
one  another,  and  as  I  entered  the  door  a  voice  from  one 
corner  said,  "You  won't  shoot  a  wounded  man,  will  you?" 
Rarely  have  I  been  more  shocked,  and  I  exclaimed  in  reply: 
"My  God!     You  can't  think  that  of  us!" 

Both  of  his  legs  were  broken,  and  he  had  dragged  himself 
or  had  been  carried  in  there  for  shelter  from  the  bullets. 
We  sent  at  once  for  our  surgeon  to  take  charge  of  him  and 
went  on  with  our  work.  In  a  dense  thicket  near  here  I 
came  upon  a  soldier  in  blue  sitting  upright  against  the  trunk 
of  a  tree,  one  hand  on  his  gun,  which  rested  across  his  thighs, 
the  other  tightly  grasping  the  brim  of  his  hat,  which  was 

^Official  Records,  vol.  xxx,  part  2,  p.  522. 
254 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

drawn  well  down  on  one  side  of  his  face,  as  if  shielding  his 
eyes  from  the  sun.  I  had  no  idea  that  a  dead  man  would 
be  sitting  upright,  but  such  was  the  case.  He  was  stiff  and 
stark.  From  under  the  knee  of  one  leg  a  pool  of  clotted 
blood  told  the  story.  A  minie  ball  had  cut  his  popliteal 
artery  or  vein,  and  I  reasoned  that  as  he  grew  faint  he  sought 
the  tree,  leaned  back  against  it,  held  on  faithfully  to  his  gun 
with  one  hand,  with  the  other  pulled  the  brim  of  his  hat 
down  to  shade  his  eyes,  then  fainted  from  loss  of  blood  and 
died. 

The  arena  swims  around  him;  he  is  gone — 

and  when,  years  after  this  awful  day,  I  saw  in  Rome  that 
marvelous  work  of  art,  "The  Dying  Gladiator,"  this  scene 
came  back  to  me.  He  was  the  only  dead  Union  soldier  I 
saw  on  that  field  of  slaughter  whose  outer  clothes  had  not 
been  removed;  and  yet  not  one  but  had  a  single  garment 
left  on  to  cover  his  nakedness.  The  Confederate  army  was 
compelled  to  take  the  clothes  of  the  dead  to  cover  the 
living,  for  it  was  in  sore  straits. 

In  places  where  the  woods  had  caught  on  fire  or  where 
men  had  been  killed  (or  possibly  only  wounded)  near  a 
house  which  had  been  burned,  their  charred  bodies  told  the 
awful  story.  As  m_uch  of  the  legs  and  thighs  as  were  not 
burned  off  were  drawn  tightly  against  the  abdomen,  as  were 
the  stumps  of  the  blackened  arms  against  the  chest.  The 
one  object  in  all  this  nightmare  of  horror  which  touched 
me  most  deeply  of  all  was  the  calm  and  beautiful  expression 
on  the  smooth  and  beardless  face  of  a  slender  lad  who  had 
been  shot  through  the  brain.  Happily  for  him,  he  must  have 
died  instantly.  Some  comrade  had  stopped  long  enough 
to  straighten  him  out  and  fold  his  hands  across  his  breast. 

25s 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Here  he  was  to  be  laid  in  a  trench  with  other  dead  com- 
rades, two  or  three  deep,  with  just  enough  earth  over  them 
to  keep  off  the  hogs  and  buzzards.  I  could  not  help  think- 
ing that  he,  too,  must  have  a  mother  who,  like  my  own,  was 
praying  that  her  boy  might  come  back  to  her;  and  this  one 
could  never  come.  I  have  asked  myself  the  question  a 
thousand  times  as  I  look  back  on  my  own  life.  Why  cannot 
men  with  hearts  in  them  and  with  heads  on  them  settle 
their  foolish  differences  in  some  other  way  than  by  shooting 
holes  through  one  another? 

Farther  on  I  came  to  one  of  the  field  hospitals  where  the 
surgeons  were  busy  with  the  wounded,  stretched  out  on 
their  blankets  under  the  trees.  One  poor  fellow  was  walk- 
ing up  and  down  holding  the  freshly  amputated  stump  of 
his  forearm  with  the  remaining  hand.  His  jaws  were  firmly 
set,  and  his  face  wore  the  hard,  fixed  expression  of  pain, 
yet  he  made  no  complaint.  In  fact,  I  do  not  think  I  heard 
a  groan  or  a  cry  in  all  that  experience.  Some  fragments  of 
arms  and  legs  lying  around  completed  the  gruesome  picture. 

The  battle  of  Chickamauga  marked  what  history  must 
record  as  the  "High  Tide  of  the  Southern  Confederacy," 
and  ended  one  of  the  great  campaigns  of  the  Civil  War, 
a  campaign  than  which  none  ever  offered  so  many  brilliant 
opportunities  to  win  undying  glory  as  were  given  to  the 
Confederate  commander.  He  failed  in  every  particular. 
The  courage,  the  heroism,  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  soldiers 
who  made  up  his  great  army  were  in  vain.  Fully  informed 
of  every  movement  of  his  over-confident  opponent,  and  with 
time  to  make  his  preparations  either  for  battle  or  retreat, 
he  hesitated  with  a  vacillation  which  lost  to  him  the  con- 
fidence of  his  subordinates  and  finally  the  respect  of  his 
adversary,  for  in  the  latter  days  of  the  campaign  General 

256 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Rosecrans  threw  caution  to  the  winds,  scattered  his  advanc- 
ing columns  in  difficult  mountain-passes  far  removed  from 
one  another,  and  invited  a  destruction  which  a  competent 
antagonist  would  readily  have  accomplished.  With  Duck 
River  in  front  and  strongly  fortified  at  Tullahoma,  the  un- 
checked strategy  of  Rosecrans  forced  him  out  with  no  fight- 
ing except  by  our  cavalry.  Then  came  the  actions  at  Elk 
River  and  Cumberland  Mountain,  both  strong  defensive 
positions,  and  finally  at  the  great  Tennessee  River,  fifth  in 
size  in  the  United  States,  at  which  not  a  gun  was  fired.  It 
is  not  surprising  the  Union  general  thought  the  Army  of 
Tennessee  was  a  disorganized  and  dispirited  mob,  that  it 
was  scampering  away  among  the  hills  of  northern  Georgia. 

On  the  contrary,  Bragg,  behind  the  great  bulwark  of  Look- 
out Mountain,  had  halted  at  last  and  concentrated  his  vet- 
erans into  an  army  as  efficient  as  any  the  world  ever  saw. 
They  proved  it  on  one  of  the  bloodiest  fields  in  history. 
Rosecrans 's  pursuing  army  was  recklessly  divided  into  three 
great  corps,  descending  to  the  valley  through  mountain 
defiles  so  widely  separated  that  each  column  could  have 
been  destroyed  without  hope  of  aid  from  the  other.  On 
September  loth  Crittenden's  corps  was  in  Chattanooga, 
McCook's  at  Summerville,  Georgia,  forty  miles  to  the  south; 
and  Thomas  in  McLamore's  Cove,  half-way  between  the 
two,  and  practically  Bragg's  whole  army  was  in  front  of 
Thomas.  The  Confederate  commander  allowed  them  all 
to  escape  and  to  concentrate,  and  then  assaulted  them  on 
ground  of  their  own  selection.  Moreover,  in  the  hour  of 
victory  he  failed  to  take  advantage  of  the  one  great  and 
glorious  opportunity  to  establish  the  Southern  Confederacy. 
In  the  four  years  of  our  war  there  may  have  been  other 
occasions  where  independence  was  possible,  but  surely  none 

257 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

like  this.  From  4  to  7  p.m.  on  Sunday,  the  20th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1863,  General  Braxton  Bragg  had  the  entire  Union 
army  in  his  grasp  and  its  destruction  assured.  No  one  who 
was  on  that  field  and  witnessed  the  utter  demoralization  of 
at  least  one-half  of  the  Federal  line  of  battle  and  the  isolation 
of  the  other  half,  and  who  is  capable  of  an  unprejudiced 
analysis  of  the  records,  can  doubt  this  assertion. 

There  was  present  on  that  field  a  wise  man,  a  close  and 
critical  observer.  He  had  been  especially  selected  by  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  and  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War,  be- 
cause he  was  wise  and  critical.  He  was  their  agent  at  the 
front,  a  kind  of  "inspector"  of  the  Union  generals.  Withal 
he  was  a  bitter  partisan  and  about  as  prejudiced  against  the 
South  and  its  cause  as  it  was  possible  for  a  human  being  to 
become,  yet  this  is  what  Charles  A.  Dana,  Assistant  Sec- 
retary of  War,  wrote : 

*T  had  not  slept  much  for  two  nights,  and  dismounted 
about  noon  and  lay  down  and  went  to  sleep.  I  was 
awakened  by  the  most  infernal  noise  I  ever  heard.  Never, 
in  any  battle  I  had  witnessed,  was  there  such  a  discharge 
of  cannon  and  musketry.  The  first  thing  I  saw  was 
General  Rosecrans  crossing  himself;  he  was  a  very  de- 
vout Cathohc.  'Hello!'  I  said  to  myself,  'if  the  general 
is  crossing  himself  we  are  in  a  desperate  situation.'  I 
was  on  my  horse  in  a  moment.  I  had  no  sooner  looked 
around  toward  the  part  where  all  this  din  came  from  than 
I  saw  our  lines  break  and  melt  away  like  leaves  before  the 
wind.  Then  the  headquarters  around  me  disappeared.  The 
graybacks  came  through  with  a  rush,  and  soon  the  musket- 
balls  and  cannon-shot  began  to  reach  the  place  where  we 
stood.  The  whole  right  of  the  army  had  apparently  been 
routed.     We  drew  back  for  greater  safety  into  the  woods, 

258 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  then  I  came  upon  Captain  Horace  Porter  and  Captain 
Drouillard,  aide-de-camp  to  General  Rosecrans,  halting  fugi- 
tives. They  would  halt  a  few,  get  them  in  some  sort  of 
order,  and  then  there  would  come  a  few  rounds  of  cannon- 
shot  and  the  men  would  break  and  run. 

"I  attempted  to  make  my  way  in  the  woods  to  Sheridan's 
division,  but  when  I  reached  the  place  where  it  had  been 
I  found  it  had  been  swept  from  the  field.  Then  I  made  my 
way  over  Missionary  Ridge  and  rode  to  Chattanooga,  twelve 
or  fifteen  miles  away.  The  whole  road  was  filled  with  fly- 
ing soldiers;  here  and  there  were  pieces  of  artillery,  caissons, 
and  baggage-wagons.  Everything  was  in  the  greatest  dis- 
order. When  I  reached  Chattanooga,  a  little  before  four 
o'clock,  I  found  Rosecrans  there.  In  the  helter-skelter  to 
the  rear  he  had  escaped  by  the  Rossville  road.  He  was  ex- 
pecting every  moment  that  the  enemy  would  arrive  before 
the  town,  and  was  doing  all  he  could  to  prepare  to  resist 
their  entrance.  Soon  after  I  arrived  the  two  corps  com- 
manders, McCook  and  Crittenden,  both  came  to  Chatta- 
nooga. Having  been  swept  bodily  off  the  battle-field,  and 
having  made  my  way  into  Chattanooga  through  a  panic- 
stricken  rabble,  I  telegraphed  Mr.  Stanton,  '  Chickamauga 
is  as  fatal  a  name  in  oiu-  history  as  Bull  Run.'" 

If  this  is  not  a  pen  picture  and  a  true  picture  of  a  battle- 
field panic,  one  has  never  been  made.  That  it  was  not  con- 
fined to  McCook's  and  Crittenden's  corps  alone  there  is 
overwhelming  evidence.  Despite  the  claims  so  often  made  to 
the  contrary,  it  is  now  known  that  Thomas,  after  holding  on 
so  tenaciously,  at  last  gave  way  in  such  confusion  that  any 
kind  of  organized  pursuit  would  have  overwhelmed  and  cap- 
tured him  and  the  remnant  of  his  command. 

There  was  never  written  a  more  exhaustive,  unprejudiced, 

259 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

or  a  fairer  book  than  Colonel  Archibald  Grade's  The  Truth 
about  Chickamauga.  Trained  as  a  soldier,  he  spent  several 
years  in  the  study  of  this  battle,  months  at  a  time  on  the 
field  walking  over  the  ground,  measuring  the  distances,  and 
analyzing  the  various  movements,  and  determining  the  dif- 
ferent positions  of  the  troops.  It  has  been  criticized  as  too 
favorable  to  the  Federal  side,  but  in  my  opinion  unfairly 
so.  I  have  gone  over  his  book  carefully  and  spent  hours 
in  consultation  with  him  over  a  subject  of  great  personal 
interest  to  us  both,  and  I  am  convinced  that,  no  matter 
whom  it  may  hurt  or  what  illusions  of  this  great  battle  it 
may  dispel,  those  looking  for  cold  facts  will  find  them  here.^ 
It  is  to  be  greatly  deplored  that  this  gentleman  died  un- 
timely from  the  frightful  exposure  he  suffered  when  the 
Titanic  went  down.  Gracie  says,  "One  Confederate  di- 
vision which  had  successfully  stormed  the  precipitous  heights 
and  driven  the  Federals  from  their  final  position  picked  up 
four  thousand  five  hundred  guns  thrown  away  by  the  flee- 
ing enemy."  Fifteen  thousand  stand  of  arms  in  all  were 
gathered  up,  to  say  nothing  of  eight  thousand  prisoners  and 
thirty-six  pieces  of  artillery. 

General  John  Beatty,  a  gallant  Union  brigade  commander, 
writes  in  his  memoirs  of  the  withdrawal  of  this  part  of  the 
army  under  Thomas  after  it  reached  Rossville: 

"At  this  hour  of  the  night  (eleven  to  twelve  o'clock) 
the  army  is  simply  a  mob.  There  appears  to  be  neither 
organization  nor  discipline.  The  various  commands  are 
mixed  up  in  what  appears  to  be  inextricable  confusion. 
Were  a  division  of  the  enemy  to  pounce  down  upon  us  be- 
tween this  and  morning,  I  fear  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland 
would  be  blotted  out." 

'  The  Truth  about  Chickamauga.    By  Colonel  Archibald  Gracie. 

260 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

General  John  G.  Spears,  commanding  a  brigade  in 
Granger's  corps,  was  posted  by  order  of  General  Rosecrans 
to  halt  all  fugitive  officers  and  soldiers  coming  from  the 
battle-field  into  Chattanooga.  He  says  in  his  report:  "The 
whole  night  was  spent  in  executing  said  orders,  and  by  next 
morning  I  had  halted  and  encamped  of  the  different  corps 
and  divisions  between  eight  thousand  and  twelve  thousand 
men  and  officers." 

The  facts  now  known  to  all  are  these :  Just  before  noon 
on  Sunday,  September  20th,  Longstreet  had  broken  through 
the  Federal  right  wing.  The  Union  line  was  composed  of 
McCook's  corps  on  the  right,  Crittenden's  corps  in  the 
center,  Thomas's  on  the  left  and  nearest  to  their  base  at  Chat- 
tanooga. Rosecrans,  commander-in-chief,  and  corps  com- 
manders McCook  and  Crittenden,  fled  with  their  panic-strick- 
en men  as  fast  as  their  horses  would  carry  them  to  get  behind 
the  breastworks  at  Chattanooga,  some  twelve  miles  to  the  rear. 

Thomas  ^  alone  was  holding  fast.     Driven  back  with  the 

^  So  much  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  attitude  toward  the  South 
of  this  man,  who,  in  my  opinion,  saved  the  cause  of  the  Union  in  this  great 
crisis,  that  the  following  letter  in  the  possession  of  Professor  W.  S.  Drewry,  of 
Richmond,  Virginia,  which  I  have  his  permission  to  use,  may  not  be  without 
interest.  Professor  Drewry  is  the  author  of  the  Southampton  Insurrection, 
a  most  carefully  prepared  and  thrilling  narrative  of  those  horrible  murders,  and 
it  is  a  startling  coincidence,  as  stated  in  this  book  in  the  chapter  on  "  Slavery," 
that  Nat  Turner  and  his  gang  of  murderers  came  within  a  few  moments  of  kill- 
ing George  H.  Thomas  and  his  mother,  who,  trying  to  escape  in  a  one-horse 
buggy,  were  being  overhauled  by  the  mounted  negroes,  and  only  saved  their 
lives  by  leaping  from  the  vehicle  and  concealing  themselves  in  the  dense 
thickets.  Well  may  the  believers  say,  "God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way.  His 
wonders  to  perform."  The  letter  before  me  is  signed  by  (Miss)  Fannie  C. 
Thomas,  sister  of  the  general,  and  is  dated  Newsom  P.  O.,  Southampton,  Va., 
November  2,  1900:  "With  regard  to  the  visit  of  General  Thomas,  I  have  to 
say  he  arrived  at  the  home  [the  Thomas  homestead  in  Southampton,  Va.]  the 
fifteenth  of  December,  i860,  and  remained  until  the  eighth  of  January,  1861, 
I  believe.  While  here  he  said  he  should  side  with  the  South,  and  my  sister 
says  tell  you  the  last  word  he  said  to  her  at  parting  was  he  should  be  back 
in  March.     He  had  much  of  his  army  baggage  sent  here  and  left  it,  wishing 

261 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

rest  by  the  desperate  onslaught  of  the  Confederates,  this 
Hon  at  bay  gathered  about  him  the  remnant  of  his  corps 
and  as  many  of  the  fugitives  as  had  rallied  to  the  roar  of 
his  guns,  and  behind  hurriedly  constructed  barricades  of 
brush  and  rails  and  logs  and  earth  stretched  along  the 
crests  of  Horseshoe  Ridge  and  Snodgrass  Hill  for  a  time 
checked  the  Confederate  advance.  All  else  was  in  rout  and 
wild  disorder,  and  could  offer  no  resistance  to  organized  and 
determined  pursuit.  The  road  to  Chattanooga  was  wide 
open  to  the  victorious  legions,  and  the  woods  were  no  more 
impenetrable  than  were  the  forests  on  the  great  battle- 
ground, through  which  and  over  which  for  three  days  they 
had  tramped  and  fought.  There  were  five  thousand  sol- 
diers, as  brave  as  ever  followed  the  Bonnie  Blue  Flag,  who 
had  just  come  fresh  on  the  field  and  in  sight  and  who  had 
not  yet  fired  a  gun.  And  Forrest  was  there  on  the  far  Con- 
federate right  with  his  unbeaten  troopers  straining  at  the 
leash  and  eager  to  "run  them  into  the  river."  This  man 
who  in  his  crude,  unlettered,  and  immortal  style  had  said, 
* '  The  time  to  whip  the  enemy  is  when  they're  running, ' '  was 
on  hand  to  lead  the  way;  to  ignore  Thomas  and  his  des- 
perate fighters;  to  let  them  have  and  hold  Horseshoe  and 
Snodgrass  ridges  ten  miles  in  the  rear  of  Chattanooga,  with 
this  fortress  and  McCook's  and  Crittenden's  fugitives  in 
possession  of  the  Confederates! 

Thomas  was  short  of  ammimition,  and  his  men,  brave 
fighters  as  they  were,  were  worn  down  with  fatigue,  for  they 
had  fought  two  days,  spent  nearly  all  of  one  night  in  a  long 


it  to  be  stored  in  the  house,  implying  he  would  return  for  it,  and  it  would 
be  ready  for  his  use;  he  also  brought  his  servants  and  left  them  in  my  sister's 
care  until  such  time  as  he  and  his  wife  might  require  the  services  of  the  cook, 
whom  Mrs.  Thomas  wished  to  retain.     The  above  are  facts." 

262 


BATTLE-FLAG    OF    THE    SOUTHERN    CONFEDERACY 

Blue  cross  containing  thirteen  stars;  red  field,  white  border.  Burnside  breech- 
loading  cavalry  carbine  and  Colt's  army  six-shooter  of  models  used  by  the  author 
in  the  service.  Post-oak  relic  containing  two  cannon-balls  and  tv/o  grape-shot 
lodged  during  the  battle  of  Chickamauga,  1863.  Thirty  years  later  this  souvenir 
was  secured  and  presented  to  the  author  by  his  friend  Dr.  Cooper  Holtzclaw,  of 
Chattanooga,  Tennessee. 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

march,  changing  position  from  the  Union  right  to  the  ex- 
treme left,  and  the  second  night  in  felling  trees  and  building 
breastworks  and  barricades.  Thus  completely  cut  off  from 
Chattanooga,  there  was  no  possible  alternative  but  surrender. 
Forrest  and  his  moimted  men  were  at  hand  in  sight  of  the 
town;  the  five  thousand  fresh  infantry  and  the  rest  of  the 
victorious  army,  certainly  no  more  fatigued  than  the  re- 
treating fugitives  of  McCook  and  Crittenden,  could  have 
followed  on  their  heels  and  gone  with  them  into  Chatta- 
nooga; and  as  if  to  emphasize  the  opportunity,  when  the 
sun  went  down  behind  Lookout  Mountain  the  moon  made 
night  almost  as  clear  as  day!  With  the  capture  of  the 
armies  of  the  Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee,  Burnside 
at  Knoxville  was  cut  off  from  help  and  possible  escape, 
even  as  later  he  was  pent  up  in  that  city.  Armed  re- 
sistance to  the  Confederate  Army  of  the  West  would 
no  longer  have  existed;  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  were 
ours  again,  and  the  way  wide  open  to  the  Ohio  and  be- 
yond! 

The  greatest  soldier  of  the  war  had  foreseen  this  pos- 
sibility. General  Longstreet  narrates  that  when  he  was 
bidding  good-by  to  General  Lee  upon  starting  to  reinforce 
Bragg  prior  to  this  battle,  Lee  enjoined  him,  when  he  should 
win  the  expected  victory,  to  push  on  to  the  Ohio  at  once, 
as  this  would  relieve  him  of  the  great  pressure  in  his 
front.  The  official  returns,  as  carefully  prepared  by  Long- 
street,  show  that  the  contending  armies  were  practically 
equal  in  numbers  in  this  bloody  battle,  the  Confederates 
having  in  the  fight  of  September  20th  59,242,  and  the  Fed- 
erals 60,867.  He  says:  "Official  reports  show  that  on  both 
sides  the  casualties  in  killed,  wounded,  and  missing  embraced 
the  enormous  proportion  of  practically  thirty-three  per  cent. 

263 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  the  troops  actually  engaged."  As  the  Confederates  lost 
no  prisoners,  all  of  their  losses  were  killed  or  wounded.  Of 
his  own  command  he  lost  in  two  hours  nearly  forty-four  per 
cent.,  while  on  the  Union  side  a  score  of  regiments  lost  forty- 
nine  per  cent.  The  Tenth  Tennessee  suffered  a  loss  of 
sixty-eight  per  cent. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  there  have  been  found  writers 
who  claim  Chickamauga  as  a  Union  victory,  since,  although 
the  Confederates  held  the  field,  the  result  of  the  fighting 
assured  the  holding  of  Chattanooga  by  the  Federals!  The 
Confederates  evacuated  Chattanooga  on  September  9th,  and 
Crittenden  occupied  this  stronghold  on  the  loth.  As  the 
Union  army,  badly  beaten  at  Chickamauga,  was  able  to 
hold  it  after  that  defeat,  it  goes  without  saying  that  they 
could  have  held  it  equally  well  without  fighting  this  battle. 


XIX 


SEQUATCHIE      VALLEY — CAPTURE      OF     THE      GREAT     WAGON- 
TRAIN — A    PRISONER    OF    WAR 

My  furlough  was  indefinitely  postponed.  The  Federals 
had  escaped  into  Chattanooga  and  were  penned  in  behind 
fortifications  they  had  made  impregnable.  Their  only 
source  of  supply  was  by  wagon  through  Sequatchie  Valley 
and  over  Walden's  Ridge.  Every  cavalryman  whose  horse 
had  stood  the  strain  of  the  last  three  weeks  was  called  to 
volunteer  for  a  movement  to  the  enemy's  rear  to  break  up 
his  communications  and  starve  him  to  surrender.  We 
started  September  27th,  and  in  order  to  save  the  animals  for 
the  hard  work  which  was  to  come  we  moved  by  easy  marches 
to  Cottonport  on  the  upper  Tennessee,  where  the  river  was 
shallow  enough  to  ford.  The  country  through  which  we 
passed  had  been  stripped  of  almost  everything  which  man 
or  horse  cotdd  eat. 

I  often  wonder  now  how  our  poor  animals  lived  through 
the  privation  and  punishment  of  this  expedition.  We  scat- 
tered in  small  companies  and  turned  off  on  side-roads  and 
byways  looking  for  forage  and  food.  The  old  men  and 
women  and  children,  all  that  were  left  at  home,  had  been 
preyed  upon  by  friend  and  foe  alike  until  they  had  learned 
to  hide  away  the  little  that  was  left.  My  company  came 
on  to  a  dilapidated  lone  cabin,  in  the  garden  of  which  were 
half  a  dozen  rows  of  cabbage-stalks  from  which  the  heads 

18  265 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

had  long  been  cut.  We  broke  ranks  and  made  a  rush  for 
them,  pulled  the  stalks  up,  root  and  all,  and  devoured  them. 
In  another  patch  we  found  some  small  pumpkins  which  had 
been  overlooked  or  considered  not  worth  gathering,  but 
everything  was  grist  to  a  hungry  Confederate,  and  we 
roasted  and  ate  them  with  parched  corn,  and  that  was  all 
we  had  for  several  days,  until  we  struck  the  great  wagon- 
train  on  October  2d. 

In  one  of  oiu*  side-excursions  in  search  of  anything  we 
might  devour  we  had  an  experience  which  illustrated  the 
truth  of  the  proverb  that  he  "who  laughs  last,  laughs  best." 
A  member  of  my  company  had  failed  to  take  proper  care 
of  his  horse,  and  the  animal's  back  became  so  sore  the  sad- 
dle could  no  longer  be  endured.  We  were  now  among  the 
"loyal  East-Tennesseeans "  (Tories,  we  called  them  then), 
and  as  we  came  unexpectedly  (to  him)  upon  a  native  pacing 
along  the  lonely  highway  on  a  good-looking  bay  mare,  Jim 
Jester  proposed  a  swap.  The  old  man  demurred,  but  the 
exigencies  of  war,  emphasized  by  a  drawn  six-shooter,  pre- 
vailed; and  Jim,  with  an  expression  of  triumph  over  a  Tory 
and  pride  in  a  fine  mount,  paced  up  and  down  through  the 
company,  showing  off  her  fine  points,  and  boasting  as  if 
the  rest  of  us  were  on  foot. 

Two  days  later,  after  we  had  toiled  up  the  steep,  long 
ascent  of  Walden's  Ridge  and  stopped  on  the  summit  for 
a  breathing-spell,  Jim's  purchase  suddenly  began  to  shiver 
and  groan  and,  before  her  rider  could  dismount,  was  seized 
with  a  violent  convulsion,  evidently  epileptic  in  character. 
Staggering  this  way  and  that,  buck- jumping  and  snorting, 
spraddling  all  four  legs  to  keep  from  sinking  to  the  ground, 
with  her  frightened  and  crestfallen  owner  yelling  "Whoa!" 
and  trying  to  find  a  chance  to  jump  off  without  disaster, 

266 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  distressed  animal  and  its  demoralized  rider  made  one 
of  the  most  comical  scenes  I  ever  witnessed.  Jim's  embar- 
rassment was  not  lessened  by  the  jeering  remarks  of  his 
comrades,  such  as,  "Jump  off  and  grab  a  root!"  "Light  and 
come  in!"  "Hit  her  on  the  hairy  side!"  etc.  The  poor  crea- 
ture at  last  went  down,  and  Jim  rolled  off  unscathed.  We 
carried  his  outfit  while  he  tramped  on  foot  into  Sequatchie 
Valley,  where  early  the  next  morning  we  captured  the  great 
wagon-train  and  mounted  our  pedestrian  on  a  mule  branded 
on  the  left  hip  "U.  S."  The  old  Tory  had  laughed  last,  for, 
barring  the  sore  back,  he  had  much  the  best  of  the  bargain. 
We  reached  the  Tennessee  at  Cottonport  at  dark.  Early 
next  morning  volunteers  with  long-range  rifles  were  called 
for  to  cover  the  crossing.  By  the  time  it  was  light  enough 
to  see,  quite  a  number  of  us  were  peeping  from  behind  trees 
along  the  bank  at  our  friends  on  the  other  side,  the  Fourth 
Ohio  Cavalry,  whom  we  had  last  greeted  at  Morris's  Ford 
on  Elk  River.  We  both  remembered  that  occasion.  They 
weren't  expecting  us  this  time,  for  they  rode  boldly  down  to 
water  their  horses  and  themselves,  but  scampered  to  cover 
when  our  rifles  cracked  and  the  bullets  came  whizzing  near 
by.  I  got  in  three  fairly  good  shots,  with  the  sight  raised 
to  four  hundred  yards,  and  then  they  came  back  at  us  as 
was  their  habit.  Then  our  side  brought  up  two  Parrott 
guns,  and  when  the  shells  began  to  explode  in  the  fringe  of 
timber  on  the  other  bank  the  "Buckeyes"  retired,  but  not 
all  of  them.  I  stood  directly  behind  one  of  our  guns  as 
the  artillerists  were  firing,  as  I  had  done  once  before  on  the 
field  of  Chickamauga,  and  could  distinctly  see  the  shrapnel 
as  they  sped  on  their  way.  I  was  never  able  to  see  one 
coming  toward  me,  even  when  the  shells  came  at  or  over 
us,  although  I  have  heard  my  comrades  say  they  saw  them. 

267 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

As  soon  as  everybody  thought  the  Yankees  had  left  the 
other  side,  Colonel  Russell  and  a  crowd  of  officers  and  some 
of  the  men  gathered  on  the  bank  in  an  open  space,  and  I 
came  up  behind  them.  The  firing  had  ceased  for  some 
minutes,  and  the  troops  who  were  to  cross  first  were 
mounting,  when  all  unexpectedly  some  impertinent  Ohioan, 
who  had  lingered  after  his  companions  had  departed, 
concluded  he  would  take  a  parting  shot  at  the  bunch. 
His  carbine  rang  out  startlingly  loud,  the  bullet  splattered 
in  the  water  about  seventy-five  yards  short,  ricocheted, 
and  whizzed  over  our  heads.  I  don't  know  whether  the 
colonel  ducked  or  not  —  probably  not  —  but  despite  the 
fact  that  I  was  protected  by  a  position  behind  the  others 
I  instinctively  dodged,  and  the  movement  seemed  fairly 
general. 

The  funny  feature  of  the  situation  was  that  everybody 
present  wanted  to  get  away,  but  no  one  was  brave  enough 
to  run  first.  We  knew  that  the  man  who  was  bold  enough 
to  stay  and  shoot  once  would  shoot  again  as  soon  as  he 
could  load  his  gun.  Moreover,  he  had  the  range  by  raising 
his  sight,  for  he  could  see  where  the  first  bullet  had  fallen 
short.  We  all  glanced  toward  the  colonel,  hoping  he  might 
lead  the  way  or  tell  us  we  might  just  as  well  walk  back  a 
few  yards  and  sit  down  behind  a  tree,  or  run,  but  he  did 
neither.  A  keen-eyed  artillerist,  who  had  a  shell  already 
rammed  home,  came  to  the  rescue,  for  he  had  seen  the 
small  flash  of  blue  smoke  on  the  other  bank,  marked  the 
tree  by  the  side  of  which  it  had  puffed  up,  and  came  so  near 
it  after  pulling  the  lanyard  that  we  didn't  have  to  move. 
The  great  dramatist  was  not  far  from  right  when  he  said, 
"What  fools  these  mortals  be!" 

That  which  we  call  courage  is  largely  a  cross  between  per- 

268 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

sonal  vanity  and  family  pride.  The  soldier  who,  advancing 
in  line  of  battle,  stepped  aside  to  let  a  frightened  rabbit  get 
through  to  the  rear  came  very  near  the  truth  when  he 
shouted  out:  "Go  it,  Molly  Cotton-Tail,  and  go  it  fast! 
I'd  be  with  you  if  it  wasn't  for  my  family!"  The  only  man 
I  ever  saw  who  had  courage  enough  to  come  out  in  the  open 
and  acknowledge  he  was  a  coward  was  the  one  at  Chicka- 
mauga,  and  that  man  after  the  war  had  pluck  enough  to 
meet  in  a  personal  encounter  another  of  about  his  size. 
This  ludicrous  scene  took  place  in  the  road  that  runs  for 
several  miles  along  the  edge  of  the  alluvial  bank  of  the  Ten- 
nessee west  of  Guntersville.  The  river  was  at  a  low  stage, 
and  the  steep  bank  of  sand  and  mud  sloped  rather  pre- 
cipitously to  the  water's  edge,  forty  or  fifty  feet  below.  The 
only  witness  was  my  intimate  friend,  the  sheriff,  who  de- 
scribed the  duel  to  me.  He  and  one  of  the  men  on  horse- 
back met  the  other,  and  the  discussion  of  a  small  debt 
owed  by  one  led  to  an  angry  dispute,  and  finally  to  a  chal- 
lenge to  "light  and  fight." 

Both  combatants  were  more  than  ordinarily  portly  and 
short  in  stature  and,  as  it  turned  out,  in  wind.  As  neither 
party  was  a^rmed,  it  promised  to  be  more  amusing  to  my 
friend  than  dangerous  to  either  contestant;  so  he  held  the 
horses  and  acted  as  umpire.  He  said  that  the  two  heavy- 
weights exhibited  extraordinary  agility  in  dismounting. 
With  clenched  fists  and  arms  flexed  in  the  attitude  of  de- 
fense, they  advanced  cautiously  toward  each  other,  '  'steppin' 
high,"  as  Jim  expressed  it  in  the  homely  phrase  of  Honey- 
comb Cove,  "as  a  Shanghai  rooster  walking  over  frozen 
ground. ' '  Without  violating  the  proprieties  which  were  rec- 
ognized as  pertaining  to  an  encounter  between  gentlemen, 
they  sparred  for  a  few  rounds,  landing  of  necessity  on  the 

269 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

most  projecting  portion  of  the  abdominal  wall  somewhat 
below  the  belt. 

At  the  close  of  the  third  round,  as  the  respiratory  move- 
ments had  assumed  a  rapidity  which  made  it  difficult  for 
the  umpire  to  count  them,  they  clenched  for  a  fall,  and  while 
swinging  to  and  fro  in  the  effort  to  down  each  other  they 
approached  so  near  the  edge  of  the  sand-bank  that  it  caved 
in.  Locked  in  a  frenzied  grip,  first  one  on  top  and  [then 
the  other,  after  some  dozen  or  more  revolutions  they  rolled 
into  the  river  and  disappeared  for  a  brief  period  from  view. 
When  they  rose  to  the  surface  they  were  no  longer  locked 
in  each  other's  arms.  As  each,  half  strangled  and  trying  to 
breathe,  was  blowing  the  water  ("snortin', "  as  Jim  called  it) 
out  of  his  mouth  and  nose,  there  was  at  least  three  feet  of 
troubled  river  between  them.  With  barely  strength  enough 
left  to  reach  the  bank,  and  unable  to  stand,  they  sat  there 
in  the  mud,  their  lower  extremities  still  submerged,  and, 
though  glaring  at  each  other,  pacified  by  baptism  and  pump- 
ing for  breath.  The  umpire,  holding  his  side  as  he  described 
the  affair  to  me,  closed  the  account  by  saying,  "John,  I 
thought  in  my  soul  I'd  die  a-laughin'  before  I  could  call  it 
a  draw." 

We  forded  the  river  on  September  30th  and  moved  out  to 
the  foot  of  Walden's  Ridge,  which  we  climbed  during  a  heavy 
downpour  of  rain,  the  first  we  had  experienced  since  leav- 
ing Alexandria  on  August  27th.  The  trail  over  this  great 
mountain  could  not  have  been  traveled  by  troops  before, 
for  we  came  upon  a  small  apple-orchard,  the  trees  of  which 
were  heavily  laden  with  a  small  but  very  welcome  fruit. 
Taking  small  note  of  the  shower  that  was  coming  down  at 
the  time,  we  rode  under  the  trees  and  from  the  saddle  filled 
our  forage-sacks. 

270 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

We  marched  until  midnight,  bivouacked  on  the  westerly 
crest  of  the  ridge  until  daylight,  and  reached  Anderson's 
Cross  Roads  in  Sequatchie  Valley  early  in  the  morning  of 
October  2d.  Our  advance,  composed  of  a  portion  of  two 
regiments,  encountered  the  leading  wagons  of  a  supply - 
train  guarded  by  a  detachment  of  Union  infantry,  which 
they  attacked;  but  they  were  driven  back  in  no  little  con- 
fusion. We  were  in  line,  in  reserve,  and  the  beaten  troopers 
passed  through  to  our  rear.  One  young  lad  was  being  sup- 
ported by  a  comrade  on  either  side.  He  had  been  shot 
through  the  lung,  and  was  bleeding  profusely  from  the  mouth. 
He  was  taken  to  Camp  Morton  a  prisoner,  and  made  a 
complete  recovery. 

It  was  here  that  General  Wheeler  paid  us  the  compliment 
of  sending  us  in.  Colonel  Russell  threw  two  companies  on 
the  right  flank  of  their  line,  which  was  lying  down  behind 
a  fence.  Seeing  they  were  flanked,  they  began  to  give  way, 
and  at  this  we  charged  at  full  speed,  rode  over  and  captured 
the  entire  guard.  I  do  not  think  they  fired  more  than  one 
volley.  Some  of  the  Federals  ran  into  a  field  of  sorghum- 
cane  which  had  been  blown  down  and  hid  themselves  be- 
neath the  tangle.  When  our  horses  struck  the  tangle  with 
their  fore  legs  the  crackling  sounded  not  unlike  a  bunch  of 
firecrackers  popping  away,  and  every  few  steps  there  would 
rise  a  frightened  man  in  blue,  holding  up  both  hands.  One 
very  badly  scared  fellow  who  had  been  not  long  out  of  his 
native  Deutschland  shouted:  "Mein  Gott!    Don't  choodt!" 

We  didn't  shoot  for  the  very  good  reason  that  from  noon 
to  near  sundown  we  didn't  see  any  but  frightened  teamsters, 
and  not  over  many  of  these;  for  when  they  heard  the  guns 
banging  and  heard  our  yells  as  we  came  on  galloping  they 
abandoned  their  teams  and  took  to  the  woods  and  moun- 

271 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

tains.  Riding  up  to  a  single-room  log  cabin  which  ap- 
peared to  be  empty,  and  shouting,  "Come  out!"  we  called 
forth  two  fine -[looking  young  chaps  bearing  Springfield 
rifles  and  full  equipment.  They  seemed  content,  but  some- 
what agitated.  I  made  a  hurried  exchange  of  pocket-knives 
with  one  of  these  prisoners.  He  was  the  owner  of  a  United 
States  army  knife,  a  clever  invention  which  had  one  good- 
sized  blade,  with  a  spoon  and  a  fork  attached.  We  traded 
even.  My  "frog-sticker"  was  of  Confederate  make,  and 
as  the  youth  went  back  under  guard  I  rode  on,  not  entirely 
satisfying  my  conscience  that  I  had  not  been  guilty  of  a 
mean  act.  It  was  the  first  and  only  time  I  ever  robbed  a 
prisoner — and  I  wish  now  I  hadn't  done  it.  The  exigencies 
of  war,  and  the  knowledge  that  he  would  be  paroled  at  once 
and  returned  to  his  Northern  home  where  knives  were  plenti- 
ful helped  in  a  measure  to  direct  my  moral  vision  once  more 
toward  the  Westminster  Confession. 

For  fully  ten  miles  on  and  on  we  went,  overhauling  more 
wagons,  mules,  and  plunder  than  I  ever  dreamed  of  seeing 
in  one  day.  At  times  for  a  quarter  or  maybe  half  a  mile 
the  road  would  be  clear.  Then  we  would  come  upon  a 
bunch  of  from  ten  to  fifteen,  or  maybe  fifty  or  more  wagons, 
jammed  and  tangled  up  in  inextricable  confusion.  In  the 
scramble  to  get  away  one  vehicle  would  be  upset  or  lose  a 
wheel  and  block  the  road.  First  on  one  side  and  then  on 
the  other  a  four  or  six  mule  team  would  wedge  itself,  and 
back  of  this  others  in  wild  flight  would  pile  on  one  another 
and  fall  over. 

We  had  gone  at  as  full  speed  as  our  horses  could  be  urged 
for  at  least  eight  miles,  and  had  passed  hundreds  of  wagons. 
Only  the  men  with  the  best  mounts  had  held  out;  the  rest 
were  strung  out  in  the  ruck,  setting  fire  to  the  wagons,  the 

272 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

smoke  of  which  was  already  filling  the  valley  as  far  back  as 
we  could  see.  Suddenly,  while  going  at  a  full  run,  my  horse 
went  down  in  a  limp  heap;  and  it  took  all  I  could  do  to 
disengage  my  right  leg,  as  the  animal  sprawled  and  rolled 
on  that  side.  There  was  no  bleeding ;  and,  while  I  had  heard 
the  bullets  singing  among  us  as  we  rode  at  the  train-guard, 
it  did  not  occur  to  me  that  my  horse  had  been  struck.  I 
think  it  was  a  rupture  of  the  heart  or  the  bursting  of  a  large 
blood-vessel  which  proved  so  suddenly  fatal.  In  my  di- 
lemma nothing  was  left  but  to  transfer  my  outfit  to  one  of 
the  captured  mules;  so,  selecting  a  large,  fine-looking  ani- 
mal, I  was  soon  up  and  going  still  farther  down  the  Sequat- 
chie Valley  road  toward  Bridgeport.  The  sun  was  about 
two  hours  high  when  we  reached  the  end  of  this  great  train, 
probably  the  largest  taken  during  the  Civil  War. 

Not  more  than  twenty  men  had  come  this  far,  and  we 
had  turned  back,  firing  the  last  wagons  as  we  went.  Near 
sundown  we  came  upon  the  rear  of  a  line  of  cavalry  formed 
across  the  valley — and  they  had  on  blue  uniforms!  We 
didn't  know  what  to  make  of  this  unexpected  visitation, 
and  at  first  thought  it  must  be  our  own  men;  but  when 
through  their  field-glasses  they  recognized  us  we  were  quick- 
ly undeceived;  for  they  sent  a  squadron  after  us  at  full 
speed.  Leaving  the  road,  we  galloped  across  a  field,  the 
outer  fence  of  which  lay  along  the  foot  of  Walden's  Ridge, 
up  the  steep  sides  of  which  we  clambered  beyond  pursuit. 
When  I  exchanged  my  dead  horse  for  a  mule  I  had  no  idea 
that  I  would  so  soon  try  him  out  on  a  mountain-climbing 
test;  but  now  he  easily  outstripped  the  horses  in  the  party. 
Two  of  these,  after  we  had  reached  a  very  great  height, 
stumbled,  fell  over  backward,  and,  rolling  and  bounding  like 
loosened  boulders  down  the  precipitate  mountainside,  were 

273 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

dashed  to  death  hundreds  of  feet  below.  It  was  a  harrow- 
ing and  unusual  exhibition  of  "grand  and  lofty  tumbling." 

From  our  high  elevation  we  could  now  distinctly  see  the 
Union  cavalry  and  other  troops  coming  up  the  valley  to 
reinforce  them.  As  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  the  smoke 
was  rising  from  the  burning  train,  and  frequently  loud  ex- 
plosions told  that  the  fire  had  reached  cases  of  ammuni- 
tion. The  sun  was  going  down,  and  we,  though  distressed 
beyond  measure  at  our  predicament,  felt  we  had  done  a 
great  day's  work. 

We  were  in  the  immediate  rear  of  the  Union  army  in 
Chattanooga,  and  cut  off  from  our  command  by  a  superior 
force  of  cavalry  which  was  pursuing  our  own  men.  Noth- 
ing was  left  us  now  but  to  abandon  our  animals,  break  up 
into  squads  of  two  or  three,  and  try  to  slip  through  Rose- 
crans's  lines  and  recross  the  Tennessee.  We  knew  that  the 
chances  of  success  were  slim.  My  fine  saddle  and  bridle, 
captured  from  the  adjutant  of  the  Second  Michigan  Cavalry 
in  Kentucky  on  Christmas  Eve,  1862,  was  deposited  in  a 
hollow  tree,  together  with  two  extra  horseshoes  and  all  my 
outfit  except  an  oil-cloth.  The  last  glimpse  I  had  of  my 
newly  acquired  mule  he  was  nibbling  at  the  sparse,  tough 
blades  of  grass  which  the  western  slope  of  Walden's  Ridge 
afforded. 

In  our  party  were  two  sturdy  young  fellows,  members  of 
my  company,  both  older  than  I  by  one  or  two  years.  They 
stood  well  in  every  way,  and  I  cast  my  lot  with  them.  In 
the  run  I  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  my  carbine,  but  still 
retained  my  army  pistol  and  its  cartridges.  One  of  my 
comrades  still  had  his  gun,  the  other  had  also  lost  his  in 
the  wild  scramble  through  the  thick  underbrush.  Our 
camping  outfit  was  my  oil-cloth  and  a  blanket  each  for  the 

274 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

other  two.  Having  been  driven  from  the  train  so  pre- 
cipitately, we  had  failed  to  secure  any  food-supplies  from 
the  rich  capture,  nor  had  we  filled  with  water  the  one  canteen 
in  our  kit.  We  were  hungry,  of  course,  and  thirsty  beyond 
expression;  but  darkness  had  come  on,  we  could  not  see  to 
walk,  so  we  huddled  together  to  keep  warm,  and  spent  a 
very  cold  and  unhappy  night.  Our  craving  for  water  was 
intensified  in  the  numerous  intervals  of  waking  by  hearing 
the  water  pouring  over  a  mill-dam  in  the  valley,  and  with 
the  first  streak  of  dawn  we  lost  no  time  in  finding  it.  No 
shipwrecked  mariner  could  have  appreciated  a  drink  more 
than  we  did  this  refreshing  supply  from  the  race. 

Seeing  a  well-worn  path,  I  followed  it  in  search  of  a  house 
and  something  to  eat,  requesting  my  comrades  to  follow.  I 
soon  came  to  a  log  cabin  with  an  open  door,  and  as  I  reached 
the  gate  I  could  see  opposite  this  another  door  which  opened 
on  a  back  porch.  There  was  no  platform  or  piazza  in  front, 
both  doors  were  wide  open,  yet  no  one  seemed  to  be  stirring. 
As  I  opened  the  gate  its  wooden  hinges  creaked,  and  almost 
instantly  a  woman  appeared  in  the  door.  Recognizing  my 
gray  jacket,  she  said,  quickly:  "You're  a  rebel,  and  you'd 
better  go  away.  There's  a  Union  soldier  on  the  back  porch !" 
As  she  began  this  greeting  I  knew  I  was  not  a  welcome  guest, 
and  before  she  finished  I  had  my  pistol  out  and  ready,  and 
none  too  soon,  for  as  I  reached  the  front  door,  which  she 
cleared  when  she  saw  what  might  happen,  a  man  in  Federal 
uniform  stepped  into  the  rear  doorway  just  opposite  and 
started  toward  the  chimney,  where,  leaning  against  the  jamb, 
I  saw  his  gun.  He  was  wise  enough  to  see  the  odds  were  in 
my  favor,  and  when  I  told  him  to  stop  he  did  so,  raising  his 
right  hand  in  token  of  surrender.  I  took  possession  of  his 
Springfield  rifle,  a  beautiful  weapon,  one  of  the  best  all- 

275 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

round  army  guns  of  our  war.  He  was  one  of  the  infantry 
guarding  the  train  when  we  attacked  it  the  day  before,  had 
escaped  into  the  woods,  and  at  dark  was  lucky  enough  to 
seek  shelter  under  a  roof  that  welcomed  a  blue  uniform. 

My  two  comrades  came  up  at  this  junctiire,  and  to  the 
one  who  had  lost  his  gun  in  the  stampede  up  the  mountain 
I  turned  over  the  new  equipment.  The  woman  with  none 
too  good  a  grace  gave  us  one  small  pone  of  corn-bread,  which 
she  said  was  all  she  had  to  spare.  I  thanked  her,  and,  tell- 
ing my  Yankee  friend  that  he  was  free  to  go  where  he  pleased 
and  that  the  Federals  were  now  in  possession  of  the  valley 
road,  we  went  back  to  the  mill-race,  made  a  fair  divide,  and 
enjoyed  our  breakfast  of  corn-bread  and  branch  water,  filled 
our  one  canteen,  and  then  proceeded  on  the  tramp  in  the 
direction  of  the  Tennessee  River.  Now  and  then  we  got 
glimpses  of  the  valley  road  along  which  the  Union  cavalry 
was  marching  in  its  pursuit  of  Wheeler's  riders,  and  to  keep 
clear  we  took  our  course  about  half-way  up  the  steep  side 
of  the  mountain.  Being  horsemen,  we  were  unaccustomed 
to  walking,  and  the  rough  going  over  boulders,  logs,  loose 
stones,  and  brush  told  on  us  heavily.  By  noon  the  canteen 
was  emptied,  and  the  sun,  which  was  now  over  on  our  slope 
of  the  ridge,  was  as  much  too  hot  for  comfort  as  the  night 
had  been  too  cold.  Seeing  below  us  a  corn-patch,  we  ven- 
tured down,  found  a  spring,  and  after  laying  in  an  essential 
supply  of  water  we  pulled  several  ears  of  corn  and  started 
back  up  the  slope.  As  we  were  clambering  over  the  fence 
the  people  who  lived  in  the  cabin  near  the  spring  spied  us 
and  yelled  something  which  we  did  not  stop  to  analyze. 
Our  sentiments  came  very  near  expression  in  the  remark 
of  the  colored  woman  who  went  with  her  "old  man"  to  see 
the  great  curiosity  of  a  later  period,  the  "X-ray."     When 

276 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

she  looked  through  the  fluorescope  and  saw  through  his 
coat  and  shirt  not  only  the  bones  in  her  husband's  chest, 
but  objects  beyond,  she  laid  the  instrument  aside  and  sought 
the  door,  saying:  "Efram,  I'm  gwine  home;  'tain't  no 
place  for  a  lady!" 

One  bit  of  luck  in  our  chapter  of  misfortunes  was  the 
possession  of  a  box  of  matches.  Early  in  the  captured  train 
we  came  across  a  lot  of  lucifer  matches,  the  first,  I  think, 
I  had  ever  seen.  We  made  effective  use  of  them  in  setting 
fire  to  the  wagons  as  we  rode  along.  Every  teamster  car- 
ried at  the  tail-board  or  hind  gate  of  his  wagon  a  feed- 
trough,  and  among  other  provender  some  fodder  or  hay, 
and  all  we  had  to  do  was  to  strike  one  of  these  red-headed 
matches  and  as  it  flared  up  stick  it  in  among  this  com- 
bustible material,  and  the  job  was  done.  When  we  were 
driven  off  I  happened  to  have  in  my  pocket  the  remnants  of 
one  of  these  boxes,  and  now  it  came  in  well,  for  we  made  a 
fire  and  parched  our  corn  and  had  luncheon.  Moreover, 
we  rested,  pulled  off  our  boots  or  shoes  to  cool  our  feet,  which 
were  beginning  to  blister,  then  trudged  on  wearily  and  pain- 
fully a  few  miles  farther  until  dark.  Then,  wishing  we  were 
at  the  Tennessee  or  anywhere  else  than  where  we  were 
excepting  Hades,  we  fell  asleep  from  exhaustion.  When  we 
awoke  it  was  October  4th,  a  date  I  wish  I  could  forget. 

As  we  ate  what  was  left  of  our  parched  com  and  emptied 
the  canteen,  a  council  of  war  was  held.  We  were  a  tinit  on 
one  point:  we  couldn't  continue  along  the  rough  slope  of 
the  moiuitain;  and  I  saw  with  more  regret  than  surprise 
that  my  two  companions  had  about  lost  heart.  They 
voted  to  go  down  to  the  valley  road  and  surrender  as  the 
easiest  way  out  of  our  seemingly  hopeless  dilemma.  Their 
argument  was  not  without  force,  for  prisoners  of  war  were 

2T1 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

being  exchanged  then,  and,  without  all  this  suffering  from 
fatigue  and  hunger  and  the  danger  of  missing  our  way- 
through  the  Federal  lines,  in  the  immediate  rear  of  which 
we  were,  we  might,  by  surrendering,  be  exchanged  and  so  be 
safely  back  with  the  regiment  in  a  few  weeks.  I  prevailed 
on  them  to  try  the  top  of  the  ridge,  which  was  one  of  the 
highest  of  the  ranges  in  that  part  of  Tennessee,  with  a  rock 
escarpment  along  its  western  slope  from  one  to  two  hundred 
feet  high.  It  was  a  hard  pull  to  the  base  of  this  magnificent 
cliff,  which  we  found  so  precipitous  that  no  one  could  scale 
it  without  a  ladder.  We  staggered  along  over  the  stony 
debris  which  had  been  eroded  by  the  wear  and  tear  of  frosts 
and  time,  until  in  sheer  despair  and  weakness  my  com- 
panions threw  their  guns  and  accouterments  away,  saying 
they  were  too  weak  to  carry  them  any  longer.  Farther  on 
we  came  to  a  deep  fissure  in  the  escarpment,  and  up  this 
we  clambered,  helping  one  another  in  the  hardest  places, 
and  at  last  found  ourselves  on  the  plateau,  where  we  were 
glad  to  sit  down  on  the  trunk  of  a  fallen  tree  and  rest. 

The  prospect  was  far  from  reassuring.  For  forty-eight 
hours  we  had  eaten  nothing  but  a  small  bit  of  corn-bread 
and  some  parched  com,  and  not  much  of  that.  We  were 
too  much  exhausted  to  retrace  our  steps  to  the  valley;  to 
follow  the  ridge  to  where  the  river  cuts  through  it  in  sight 
of  Chattanooga  was  impossible,  for  there  was  neither  water 
nor  food  on  the  route ;  and  as  we  estimated  the  distance  we 
were  still  some  thirty  miles  from  the  Tennessee.  As  far 
as  we  could  see  there  was  not  a  sign  of  human  habitation, 
nothing  but  an  unbroken  vista  of  sparsely  timbered,  half- 
barren  mountain  plateau.  While  we  were  getting  what 
comfort  we  might  out  of  these  somber  reflections  we  saw, 
as  if  he  had  come  up  out  of  the  earth,  coming  so  directly 

278 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

toward  us  that  he  must  of  necessity  pass  very  near,  a  man 
on  foot — a  Federal  soldier,  for  he  had  on  a  full  blue  uniform. 
He  had  not  seen  us,  so  we  simply  slid  backward  off  the  log 
and  peered  over  at  the  passing  stranger.  As  he  came  nearer 
I  saw  he  was  unarmed,  and  it  would  have  been  a  simple 
matter  to  have  taken  him  in  with  my  six-shooter.  We  were, 
however,  as  desirous  of  not  being  seen  as  he  could  be;  and 
he  went  on  his  way  in  blissful  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  six 
Confederate  eyes  were  taking  his  measure  only  a  few  yards 
away.  He  was  evidently  a  deserter  from  Rosecrans's 
army  trying  to  make  his  way  back  to  his  home  through  the 
woods  across  these  desolate  moimtains.  Poor  fellow,  he 
was  in  more  danger  than  we,  for  if  caught  he  would  be  shot 
in  short  order,  and  the  chances  were  heavily  against  him, 
for  he  had  many  weary  miles  to  tramp  before  he  could  cross 
the  Ohio.  Even  then  he  would  not  be  safe.  Our  own  situa- 
tion did  not  admit  of  argument,  and  as  our  only  hope  of 
getting  out  at  all  lay  in  the  direction  of  food  and  water, 
we  struck  out  in  desperation  straight  across  the  plateau. 

Between  three  and  four  in  the  afternoon  we  spied  a  break 
in  the  timber  ahead,  which  as  we  came  nearer  proved  to 
be  a  small  clearing  around  which  was  the  wreckage  of  a 
half-rotten  rail-fence.  The  inclosure,  which  contained  sev- 
eral good-sized  apple-trees,  was  uncultivated.  When  we 
reached  the  trees  we  discovered  plenty  of  leaves  but  not 
one  solitary  apple,  and  in  the  sandy  ground  beneath  we 
read  the  reason.  There  were  footprints  without  number, 
and  fresh,  and  square-toed  shoes  had  made  them,  and  we  knew 
these  shoes  were  worn  by  Union  soldiers.  We  listened 
eagerly  and  could  hear  nothing,  but,  as  children  playing 
"hide  and  seek"  might  say,  we  were  "getting  warm."  A 
ravine  at  the  corner  of  the  inclosure  indicated  the  presence 

279 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  the  spring,  which  must  be  somewhere  near;  for  no  one 
could  ever  have  lived  there  without  this  source  of  a  supply 
of  water. 

We  found  it,  refreshed  ourselves,  and  started  up  the  nar- 
row path  which  we  supposed  would  take  us  to  the  home  of 
the  people  who  used  this  spring.  This  trail  led  up  a  sharp 
rise,  and  just  as  I  reached  the  top  I  almost  collided  with 
two  Federal  soldiers,  who,  climbing  up  the  other  side, 
reached  the  crest  as  I  did.  I  ducked  down  instantly,  and, 
getting  my  pistol  out  as  I  turned,  ran  back  and  passed  my 
comrades,  saying,  "Run  boys!  Here  are  the  Yankees!" 
One  of  these  answered,  "It's  no  use;  we  might  as  well 
surrender  now";  and,  as  the  two  men  in  blue  were  right  on 
them,  they  gave  up.  At  this  I  turned  about  and  noticed 
that  the  man  in  front  was  an  officer  and  had,  so  far  as  I 
could  see,  no  other  weapon  than  his  sword.  The  equip- 
ment of  his  companion,  who  was  directly  behind  him  in  the 
path,  I  could  not  make  out. 

Taking  a  dead  aim  at  the  officer,  who,  pluckily  advancing, 
was  not  ten  steps  from  the  muzzle  of  my  pistol,  I  was  just 
in  the  act  of  firing  when  Frank  Erwin  jumped  between  him 
and  me  and,  running  toward  me  with  both  hands  raised, 
cried,  appealingly:  "For  God's  sake,  John,  don't  shoot  him! 
If  you  do,  we'll  all  be  murdered."  With  this  I  threw  my  six- 
shooter  on  the  ground  and  was  a  prisoner.  The  humiliation 
and  wretchedness  of  this  moment  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
describe;  but  I  render  my  captor  the  compliment  due  a 
brave  soldier. 

We  were  practically  in  the  bivouac  of  a  company  of  cav- 
alry. We  were  placed  under  guard  in  a  wagon,  and  carried 
by  sundown  back  into  Sequatchie  Valley,  and  turned  over 
to  the  Tenth  Illinois  Infantry.     Three  fine  young  fellows 

280 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

were  detailed  to  take  charge  of  us,  and  for  safe-keeping  the 
adjutant  of  this  regiment  (I  think  he  was  called  Captain 
Lusk)  directed  that  we  be  guarded  inside  of  an  old  unused 
stable.  The  stench  was  so  disagreeable  that  I  said  to  the 
officer,  "The  smell  in  here  is  so  bad,  couldn't  you  let  us 
sleep  out  in  the  lot?"  and  his  quick  retort  was,  "Young 
man,  Jesus  Christ  was  born  in  a  stable,  and  you  might 
afford  to  spend  a  night  in  one." 

When  dark  came  the  corporal  of  the  guard  said,  "Boys, 
if  you'll  give  us  your  word  of  honor  you  won't  try  to  es- 
cape you  may  come  out  here  and  lay  around  the  fire  with 
us,"  and  we  did.  These  were  fine  fellows,  and  I  found  out 
that  my  first  cousin,  Thomas  Smith,  of  Jacksonville,  Illinois, 
was  captain  of  this  company.  He  was,  however,  absent 
on  account  of  an  illness  from  which  he  died.  Richmond 
Walcott  was  the  lieutenant  in  command,  and  was  very 
courteous  to  me.  We  had  not  as  yet  tasted  food,  and  when 
I  remarked  to  young  McEvers  that  we  hadn't  had  anything 
for  a  long  time  he  said  they  were  on  half -rations  by  rea- 
son of  our  destruction  of  their  train,  but  that  he  would  see 
what  could  be  done.  He  disapp'eared  for  a  while,  and  came 
back  with  two  big  army  crackers  (hardtack)  for  each  of  us 
and  a  jar  of  strained  honey.  In  1868,  while  visiting  my 
relatives  there,  I  called  on  this  young  man  at  his  home 
in  Jacksonville  to  pay  my  respects.  On  October  5th  we 
started  by  wagon  for  Stevenson,  Alabama,  where  we  spent 
several  days  in  a  stockade.  Our  route  lay  through  miles  of 
burned  wagons  and  fully  a  thousand  dead  mules,  for  when 
General  Wheeler  saw  he  could  not  escape  with  these  animals 
he  ordered  them  killed.  As  our  wagon  was  passing  near 
where  I  had  captured  the  Union  soldier  I  happened  to  see 
him  sitting  by  the  roadside.     The  recognition  was  mutual, 

19  281 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  he  greeted  me  cordially  with,  ' '  Hello,  Johnny !  They've 
got  you  this  time,"  and  I  told  him  it  looked  that  way. 
The  term  Johnny,  an  abbreviation  of  "Johnny  Reb,"  was 
often  used  by  Union  soldiers  in  greeting  a  Confederate. 

From  Stevenson  we  were  carried  by  train  to  Nashville, 
and  there  confined  in  the  state  penitentiary  for  two  days. 
I  slept  in  a  cold,  damp  cell  along  with  deserters,  "bounty- 
jumpers,"  and  a  crowd  of  criminals,  many  of  whom  had  a 
ball  and  chain  dangUng  at  their  ankles.  In  this  prison  I  con- 
tracted a  cold,  which  developed  into  a  severe  pneumonia, 
the  initial  chill  of  which  came  on  three  days  later,  when  I 
arrived  in  Camp  Morton.  The  troops  which  chased  us 
into  the  mountains  on  October  2d  belonged  to  a  brigade  of 
cavalry  under  Colonel  E.  M.  McCook,^  who  was  just  too 
late  to  save  the  great  train  he  was  sent  to  protect.  They 
had  come  up  from  Bridgeport  by  a  road  parallel  with  the 
one  down  which  we  were  advancing  in  the  destruction  of 
their  wagons.  When  they  heard  the  wagons  loaded  with 
ammunition  exploding  they  came  through  a  gap  in  the 
intervening  ridge  and  formed  their  line  of  battle  facing  up 
the  valley,  cutting  our  detachment  hopelessly  oflE  from  our 
main  column. 

Russell's  Fourth  Alabama  regiment,  unaided,  captured 
this  immense  train.  General  Wheeler  reported:  "The 
number  of  wagons  was  variously  estimated  from  eight 
hundred  to  fifteen  hundred.  The  quartermaster  in  charge 
of  the  train  stated  that  there  were  eight  hundred  six-mule 
wagons  besides  a  great  number  of  sutler's  wagons.  The 
train  was  guarded  by  a  brigade  of  cavalry  in  front  and  a 
brigade  of  cavalry  in  the  rear,  and  on  the  flank  where  we 
attacked  were  stationed  two  regiments  of  infantry."     Gen- 

*  Official  Records,  vol.  xxx,  part  i,  p.  675. 
2S2 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

eral  Rosecrans,  commander-in-chief  of  the  Union  army,  in 
a  despatch  to  Major-General  Biirnside,  dated  October  5, 
1863,  referring  to  this  train,  says:  "Your  failure  to  close 
your  troops  down  to  our  left  has  cost  five  hundred  wagons 
loaded  with  essentials,  and  Heaven  only  knows  where  the 
mischief  will  end."  From  my  own  observation,  I  am  of 
the  opinion  that  five  hundred  would  not  be  very  far  from 
correct.  We  missed  one  bunch  of  about  thirty  wagons 
which  had  turned  off  in  a  narrow  and  not  much  used  road- 
way, and  were  already  partly  toward  the  summit  of  Walden's 
Ridge.  One  of  these  was  reported  to  have  been  the  pay- 
master's wagon,  loaded  with  greenbacks  enough  to  pay  off 
the  army  in  Chattanooga.  As  to  the  truth  of  this  I  cannot 
testify.  We  lost  two  men  killed  in  my  company  and  eight 
or  ten  captured. 

With  the  exception  of  our  detachment  of  about  twenty 
men  (and  not  more  than  this  number  rode  on  until  the  last 
wagon  was  taken),  which  was  hopelessly  cut  off  from  escape 
by  the  interposition  of  McCook's  brigade,  our  losses  would 
have  been  insignificant  had  it  not  been  for  the  unfortunate 
discovery  of  a  sutler's  wagon  loaded  to  the  guards  with 
brandied  peaches.  The  driver  and  owner  had  fled  at  our 
approach,  and,  having  sought  safety  by  climbing  up  the 
steep  side  of  Walden's  Ridge,  along  the  foot  of  which  the 
road  lay,  was  in  all  likelihood  a  helpless  and  hopeless  wit- 
ness of  the  plundering  of  his  merchandise.  The  rich  har- 
vest this  sutler  had  expected  to  reap  when  he  arrived  in 
the  beleaguered  fortress  of  Chattanooga  was  not  to  be  gar- 
nered.    Man  only  proposes;   the  disposition  is  elsewhere. 

The  brandy  must  have  been  very  strong  or  our  men  un- 
usually susceptible  to  intoxication,  for  quite  a  number  be- 
came so  drunk  from  eating  these  peaches  that  they  fell 

283 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

from  their  horses  and  were  made^  prisoners  while  asleep 
on  the  roadside.  One  officer  on  General  Wheeler's  staff 
suffered  an  impairment  of  co-ordination  to  such  an  extent 
that  in  a  sabre  duel  with  a  Federal  trooper  the  Union 
sabreur  dealt  him  a  right  cut  which  not  only  unhorsed  him, 
but  cut  his  upper  lip  clear  across  just  beneath  the  nose, 
leaving  it  and  the  attached  mustache  to  droop  an  inch 
below  the  normal  position.  He  joined  our  squad  of  pris- 
oners at  Stevenson,  and  was  about  the  most  dilapidated 
member  of  the  group. 

Of  my  personal  experiences  on  this  exciting  day,[beyond 
the  loss  of  my  horse  a  brief  interview  with  our  general 
was  the  most  interesting.  We  had  whipped  everything  in 
sight,  captured  the  train -guard  or  scattered  it  into  the 
woods,  and  I  had  kept  on  overtaking  wagon  after  wagon 
for  fully  eight  miles  without  stopping  for  a  minute  to  hunt 
for  something  to  eat.  At  last,  seeing  a  big  box  of  cheese 
and  some  crackers  in  one  of  the  wagons,  I  dismounted, 
threw  the  bridle  over  a  standard,  clambered  in,  cut  off  a 
large  chunk  of  the  cheese,  filled  my  pockets  with  crackers, 
and  was  just  in  the  act  of  remounting  my  captured  mule 
when  General  Wheeler  galloped  up,  sword  in  hand,  and  said 
to  me,  "Get  in  your  saddle  and  go  on  after  the  enemy." 
As  he  and  I  were  the  only  Confederates  in  sight  just  then, 
I  said,  "All  right,  General.  Have  some  cheese,"  and  the 
private  and  the  major-general  rode  on  side  by  side  down 
the  Sequatchie  Valley  road  "after  the  enemy"  and  munching 
cheese  and  crackers. 

Fully  thirty  years  after  the  war  I  gave  a  dinner  in  New 
York  to  a  number  of  friends  in  honor  of  my  old  commander, 
and  in  introducing  him  I  told  this  story  as  above  given, 
seemingly  to  his  enjoyment  at  the  remembrance  of  it.     My 

284 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

military  career  practically  ended  on  October  4, 1863.  Had  I 
thought  for  an  instant  that  there  would  be  no  further  ex- 
change of  prisoners,  or  that  for  sixteen  weary  months  there 
was  in  store  for  me  the  anguish  of  enforced  idleness  and  the 
suffering  from  cold,  hunger,  and  vermin,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  cruel  indifference  of  our  keepers,  I  would  not  have  sur- 
rendered as  long  as  I  could  have  stood  on  my  feet.  It  was 
a  lucky  thing  for  the  officer  to  whom  I  yielded,  for  I  could 
and  would  have  killed  him,  notwithstanding  the  interven- 
tion of  my  comrades.  It  is  all  now  of  the  long  ago,  and  "all's 
well  that  ends  well";  but  it  was  a  sad  awakening  from  my 
soldier  dream  of  glory. 


XX 

PRISON    LIFE    IN    CAMP    MORTON — HOMEWARD    BOUND — ^JOHN 

JONES 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  October,  1863,  and  late  at 
night  when  we  arrived  in  the  prison  inclosure  at  Camp 
Morton,  in  the  suburbs  of  Indianapolis.  No  provision  had 
been  made  for  "fresh  fish" — the  term  of  welcome  applied 
to  every  new  batch  of  prisoners — and  we  slept,  or  tried  to 
sleep,  through  the  cold  night  in  the  open  air  upon  the  ground. 
This  was  a  fitting  introduction  to  the  indifference  and  bru- 
tality of  the  authorities  who  had  succeeded  the  noble,  gen- 
erous, and  beloved  Colonel  Owen  as  commander  of  this 
prison,  to  whose  memory  we  ex- Confederates  in  later  years 
in  grateful  recognition  placed  a  memorial  bust  in  the  capitol 
at  Indianapolis.  Toward  morning  I  was  seized  with  a  chill 
which  lasted  for  several  hours  and  ushered  in  a  severe  attack 
of  pneumonia,  from  the  effects  of  which  I  did  not  recover 
for  many  years. 

As  soon  as  it  was  day  a  fellow-prisoner,  the  Rev.  J.  G. 
Wilson,  formerly  President  of  the  Huntsville  (Alabama) 
Female  College,  requested  an  officer  in  charge  to  send  me 
to  a  hospital,  or  at  least  put  me  under  shelter.  He  was  told 
there  was  no  room,  but  was  promised  that  the  first  vacancy 
would  be  held  for  me.  This  occurred,  as  the  hospital  stew- 
ard afterward  informed  me,  at  2  p.m.,  and  an  hour  later 
I  was  in  the  dead  man's  bed. 

286 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

I  found  myself  in  kind  hands  and  under  the  skilful  care 
of  Dr.  Charles  J.  Kipp,  whom  in  later  years  I  was  to  know 
intimately.  Little  did  he  or  I  think  as  I  lay  there  day  after 
day,  a  lad  of  eighteen  years,  hovering  between  life  and  death, 
that  in  1902  I  should,  as  President  of  the  American  Medical 
Association,  entertain  him,  a  delegate  from  the  state  of  New 
Jersey,  as  the  honored  guest  of  myself  and  my  family.  In 
191 1  this  noble  man  died;  and,  as  it  was  impossible  for  me 
to  attend  the  funeral,  I  sent  a  floral  tribute  and  a  note  say- 
ing, "From  an  old  Confederate  soldier  who  owes  a  lasting 
debt  of  gratitude  to  this  great  and  good  surgeon  of  the 
Union  army."  I  was  told  the  minister  read  this  for  his 
text,  and  from  it  preached  the  funeral  sermon. 

During  my  prison  life,  broken  in  health  by  exposure  and 
lack  of  sufficient  food,  I  spent  several  months  in  the  hos- 
pitals at  Camp  Morton,  and  I  bear  witness  to  the  conscien- 
tious attention  and  kindly  treatment  accorded  to  myself 
and  comrades  by  the  physicians,  nurses,  and  hospital  au- 
thorities. 

It  is  none  the  less  true  that  in  1863,  and  to  the  middle  of 
1864,  the  facilities  for  treating  the  sick  were  wholly  inade- 
quate, and  many  deaths  were  doubtless  due  to  this  failure 
to  provide  the  necessary  quarters.  Later  wooden  pavilions 
with  plastered  walls  and  ceilings  were  erected,  and  by  the 
fall  of  1864  these  were  increased  to  a  capacity  equal  to  all 
ordinary  requirements. 

The  hospital  in  which  I  found  myself  was  composed  of 
two  square  army  tents  merged  into  one  pavilion,  on  either 
side  of  which  cots  were  placed — I  think  sixteen  beds  in  all. 
The  heat  furnished  was  from  a  single  stove  which  was 
situated  near  the  center  of  the  aisle.  The  floor  was  of 
plank,  elevated  sHghtly  above  the  ground. 

287 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Since  I  had  no  clothes  except  the  light  suit  I  wore  when 
captured,  and  was  without  an  overcoat  or  a  blanket,  my  good 
friend  Dr.  Wilson  notified  my  relatives  living  at  Jackson- 
ville, Illinois,  of  my  serious  illness  and  great  needs.  A  sister 
of  my  mother  came  at  once  to  the  prison  and  provided  me 
with  everything  I  needed,  gave  me  twenty  dollars  in  green- 
backs, and  left  an  order  at  headquarters  for  all  I  might  re- 
quire. In  about  three  weeks  I  was  declared  convalescent 
and  sent  back  to  the  cold,  cheerless  barracks  in  which  no 
method  of  heating  had  been  installed.  Within  a  fortnight 
I  was  taken  ill  with  measles  and  sent  to  the  hospital  for  con- 
tagious diseases,  where  I  remained  for  many  weeks. 

Camp  Morton,  a  military  prison,  was  in  1863  a  plot  of 
ground  formerly  used  as  a  fair-ground,  in  shape  a  parallelo- 
gram, containing  then  about  twenty  acres  of  land  and  in- 
closed by  a  plank  wall  some  twenty  feet  high.  In  1864  the 
prison  wall  was  moved  out  on  one  side,  taking  in  some  ten 
acres  more.  It  was  bisected  by  a  little  rivulet  which  the 
prisoners  christened  "the  Potomac."  The  barracks  were 
situated  on  either  side  of  this  branch.  They  had  been 
erected  as  cattle-sheds  and  stables  for  fair-ground  purposes, 
were  about  twenty  feet  wide,  ten  feet  to  the  eaves,  fifteen 
to  the  middle  of  the  roof,  and  about  eighty  feet  long.  The 
sides  were  of  weather-boards  ten  to  twelve  inches  wide,  set 
on  end,  and  leaving  numerous  cracks  through  which  the 
rain  and  snow  beat  in  upon  us.  I  have  often  seen  our  top 
blankets  white  with  snow  when  we  were  hustled  out  for 
morning  roll-call. 

The  roof  was  of  shingles  and  water-tight.  Along  the 
comb  an  open  space  about  a  foot  wide  extended  the  entire 
length  of  the  shed.  The  earth  served  as  a  floor,  which  in 
wet  weather  became  a  quagmire  near  the  two  end  doors. 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Along  each  side  of  this  shelter,  extending  seven  feet  toward 
the  center,  were  constructed  four  tiers  of  bunks,  the  lowest 
about  one  foot  from  the  ground,  the  second  three  feet  above 
this,  the  third  three  feet  above  the  second,  while  the  fourth 
was  on  a  level  with  the  eaves.  Upon  these  long  shelves, 
not  partitioned  off,  the  prisoners  slept  or  lay  down,  heads 
to  the  wall  and  feet  toward  the  center  of  the  passageway. 
About  two  feet  of  space  was  allotted  to  each  man,  making 
about  three  hundred  and  twent}^  men  housed  in  each  shed. 
As  we  had  little  or  no  straw  for  bedding,  and  as  each  man 
was  allowed  only  one  blanket,  there  was  scant  comfort  to 
be  had  in  our  bunks  imtil  our  miseries  were  forgotten  in 
sleep.  The  scarcity  of  blankets  forced  us  to  huddle  together 
in  cold  weather  three  in  a  group  or  more,  with  one  blanlcet 
between  us  and  the  planks,  and  the  other  two  for  covering. 
The  custom  was  to  take  turns  in  occupying  the  warm 
middle  place. 

The  only  attempt  at  heating  these  sheds  was  by  means 
of  four  stoves  placed  at  equal  distances  along  the  passage- 
way, and  these  were  not  installed  until  late  in  the  w^inter 
of  1863.  Even  then  only  the  stronger  men  who  could  push 
or  fight  their  way  to  the  fire  and  had  muscle  enough  to 
maintain  their  place  enjoyed  the  luxiny  of  artificial  warmth. 
Up  to  Christmas  of  1864  I  do  not  believe  I  had  felt  the  heat 
from  a  stove,  as  I  was  unable  to  hold  my  own  in  the  miser- 
able crowd  which  hovered  about  the  fire  until  the  guards 
drove  them  to  their  bunks  at  dark.  Among  men  the  great 
number  of  whom  had  never  been  in  a  cold  climate  the  suf- 
fering was  intense,  when  with  such  surrotmdings  the  mer- 
cury was  near  zero.  The  records  show  that  it  was  twenty 
degrees  below  zero  at  Indianapolis  on  New  Year's  day, 
1864,  and  that  it  remained  below  for  thirty-six  hours.     One 

289 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

man  sleeping  near  my  bunk  was  frozen  to  death,  and  many- 
perished  from  disease  brought  on  by  exposure,  added  to 
their  condition  of  emaciation  from  lack  of  food. 

During  the  very  coldest  spells  the  prisoners  were  in  the 
habit  of  sleeping  in  larger  squads  or  groups,  since  the  cold 
could  be  better  combated  by  combining  blankets  and  body 
heat.  The  top  blanket  would  be  moistened  to  make  it 
more  impermeable  and  prevent  the  radiation  of  body 
warmth.  Lots  were  drawn  for  places,  and  woe  to  the  un- 
fortunate end  men.  The  squad  of  from  five  to  seven  slept 
"spoon  fashion."  No  one  was  allowed  to  rest  on  his  back, 
since  this  took  up  too  much  room  from  the  middle  of  the 
blankets.  The  narrower  the  bulk  to  be  covered  the  thicker 
the  covering.  At  intervals  all  through  these  intensely  cold 
nights  above  the  shivering  groans  of  the  unhappy  prisoners 
could  be  heard  the  orders  of  the  end  men,  "Now,  boys, 
spoon!"  and  they  would  all  flop  over  on  the  other  side,  to 
the  gratification  of  one  end  man  and  the  disgust  of  the 
other,  whose  back  by  the  change  was  once  more  exposed 
to  the  cold.  No  one  can  imagine  how  long  those  days  and 
nights  of  winter  seemed  unless  he  has  gone  through  such 
an  experience. 

Relatives  living  in  the  North  and  my  good  friends  the 
Breckinridges  in  Kentucky  supplied  me  generously  with 
books,  and  many  an  hour  of  those  days  of  desolation  was 
utilized  in  reading,  and  especially  in  studying  French. 
Some  one  sent  a  Fasquelle's  French  grammar,  and  I  almost 
"learned  it  by  heart."  There  were  among  the  prisoners 
a  goodly  number  of  Louisiana  Creoles,  whose  mother  tongue 
was  French,  and  from  some  of  these  I  took  lessons  in  con- 
versation. 

During  my  term  of  imprisonment  I  had  a  good  oppor- 

290 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

tunity  to  make  a  careful  study  of  the  Bible,  which  I  read 
through  three  times  while  there.  I  remember  some  thought- 
ful friend  sent  me  a  book,  which  no  doubt  she  supposed 
would  fit  into  the  loneliness  of  a  prisoner  in  his  cell.  It  was 
entitled  Salad  for  the  Solitary.  She  would  have  smiled  to 
see  the  hopeless  efforts  I  was  making  to  be  "soHtary"  in 
our  over-packed  cattle-shed. 

When  the  bugle  sounded,  between  daylight  and  sunrise, 
we  gladly  tumbled  out  for  roll-call,  for  we  were  tired  of  the 
hard  planks.  '  Our  toilet,  which  in  winter  consisted  of  put- 
ting on  our  hats,  was  soon  over,  and  we  were  in  line  to  an- 
swer to  our  names.  In  the  Medical  and  Surgical  History 
of  the  Rebellion,  issued  from  the  office  of  the  Surgeon- General 
of  the  United  States  Army  (Medical  Volume,  Part  III),  is 
the  report  of  an  official  inspection  of  these  quarters  in  Camp 
Morton,  made  in  July,  1864.  They  are  described  as  "nine 
dilapidated  barracks."  "There  were  also  two  hundred  and 
ten  tents  in  use.  The  quarters  were  much  crowded.  This 
condition  continued  until  September,  1864." 

At  no  period  was  the  ration  issued  sufficient  to  satisfy 
hunger.  During  the  first  few  months  of  my  prison  life  I 
was  allowed  to  purchase  certain  articles  from  the  prison 
sutler.  Tickets  which  were  worthless  elsewhere  were  is- 
sued by  this  man  to  the  prisoners  in  return  for  greenbacks 
placed  to  their  credit  at  headquarters.  Although  the  prices 
paid  were  extortionately  high,  we  never  ceased  to  regret 
the  order  which  closed  this  source  of  supply.  I  was  reduced 
to  such  straits  that  at  one  time  I  gladly  paid  fifteen  cents 
for  a  single  ear  of  corn,  and  I  know  from  personal  observa- 
tion that  many  of  my  comrades  suffered  acutely  from  star- 
vation. Day  after  day  it  was  easy  to  notice  the  progress 
of  emaciation,  until  the  men  became  so  weak  that  when 

291 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

attacked  with  an  illness  which  a  well-nourished  man  would 
readily  have  resisted  they  succumbed.  One  feature  of  this 
miserable  process  of  starvation  by  degrees,  sadder  by  far 
than  death  itself,  was  the  moral  degradation  to  which  many 
of  the  prisoners  sank.  Men  who  had  borne  reputations  for 
honesty  and  soldierly  conduct  not  only  practised  stealing 
from  their  comrades,  but  fed  like  hogs  upon  the  refuse  ma- 
terial thrown  into  the  swill-tubs  from  the  hospital  kitchen. 
I  was  one  of  a  committee  whose  duty  it  was  to  forcibly 
prevent  these  men  from  making  brutes  of  themselves  and 
bringing  shame  unjustly  upon  their  comrades  by  such  un- 
manly practices. 

In  the  Century  Magazine  for  September,  1891,  Dr.  Charles 
J.  Kipp,  who  was  surgeon  in  charge,  says :  "I  know  that  the 
refuse  material  of  the  swill-barrels  of  the  hospital  was  often 
carried  away  by  the  prisoners.  I  reported  this  fact  to  the 
officers,  and  was  assured  by  them  that  the  men  who  did 
this  had  either  sold  their  rations  or  lost  them  through 
gambling." 

The  sad  truth  is  that  the  poor  fellows  were  hungry,  and 
did  not  have  the  moral  courage  to  abstain  from  eating 
this  kitchen  refuse.  In  punishment,  upon  one  occasion,  we 
dipped  a  chronic  offender  head  foremost  as  far  as  his  shoul- 
ders in  the  swill  and  exacted  from  him  a  promise  that  he 
would  never  repeat  the  offense.  All  the  rats  which  could 
be  trapped  were  eaten,  and  to  my  knowledge  one  fat  dog 
was  captured  by  my  messmates,  cooked,  and  eaten.  I  was 
invited  to  partake;  and,  although  the  scent  of  the  cooking 
meat  was  tempting,  I  could  not  so  far  overcome  my  re- 
pugnance to  this  animal  as  an  article  of  diet  as  to  taste  it. 
The  only  way  to  obtain  a  bit  of  extra  bread  was  by  barter 
with  tobacco. 

293 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

In  the  last  months  of  my  prison  life  tobacco  became  the 
medium  of  exchange.  Those  of  us  who  had  money  at 
headquarters  received  sutler's  tickets  in  exchange,  and  with 
these  we  bought  small  plugs  of  black  tobacco,  which  we 
traded  for  bits  of  bread  and  other  food  with  those  who 
would  part  with  a  small  part  of  their  ration  for  a  chew  of 
tobacco  or  a  smoke.  The  unit  of  currency  was  a  "chaw" 
of  tobacco,  cut  about  one  inch  square  and  a  quarter  of  an 
inch  thick.  A  loaf  of  bread,  about  three  and  a  half  inches 
wide  and  deep  by  seven  inches  long,  was  known  as  a  "duf- 
fer," and  a  cracker  as  "hardtack."  The  oil  and  marrow  of 
beef  bones,  which  were  carefully  split  into  fine  particles  and 
boiled,  formed  a  prison  luxury  called  "bone  butter."  The 
entire  ration  for  one  day  was  not  enough  for  a  single  meal. 
As  soon  as  bread  was  issued  the  more  improvident  de- 
voured their  loaves  without  waiting  for  anything  else. 
When  the  wagon  was  late  a  crowd  would  gather  as  near  the 
gate  as  they  dared  to  approach  and  shout ' '  Bread !  Bread !" 
in  a  distressing  chorus.  The  small  piece  of  meat  would  be 
eaten  at  once,  and  after  this,  with  the  exception  of  a  pint 
of  soup  issued  to  each  man  at  sundown,  nothing  was  received 
until  the  next  day.  The  more  sensible  men  restrained  their 
appetites  until  the  entire  ration  was  received,  and  then  di- 
vided it  in  two  portions,  for  a  morning  and  an  afternoon 
meal  There  were  seven  men  in  my  mess,  and  the  piece  of 
meat  for  this  squad  was  divided  into  as  many  portions,  so 
equally  distributed  that  each  member  expressed  himself  as 
entirely  satisfied  before  lots  were  drawn.  To  avoid  any 
suspicion  of  partiality  one  member  turned  his  back,  and  as 
the  chief  touched  one  portion  and  cried,  "Who  gets  this?" 
the  arbiter  would  call  the  name  of  the  person  to  whom  it 
was  to  be  allotted.     There  was  no  appeal  from  this  decision. 

293 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

When  vegetables  were  issued  with  the  meat  there  was  no 
soup  at  sundown. 

For  the  first  three  months  of  my  imprisonment  I  was  al- 
most all  of  the  time  in  the  hospital,  ill  with  pneumonia  and 
measles  and  the  prostration  which  followed.  Early  in  1864 
the  "retaliatory  order"  from  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of 
War  at  Washington  was  carried  into  effect ;  and  our  ration, 
already  insufficient,  was  still  further  reduced.  AUhough  I 
could  command  all  the  money  I  wanted,  I  could  not  use  it 
to  purchase  food  from  the  outside.  Moreover,  we  had  no 
way  of  letting  those  ready  and  willing  to  send  us  food  know 
of  our  want.  Every  line  written  was  scanned,  and  any 
suggestion  of  lack  of  food  or  maltreatment  caused  the  de- 
struction of  the  letter.  For  a  short  time  I  was  detailed  as 
"camp  messenger"  at  the  prison  headquarters,  and  while 
there  I  witnessed  the  method  of  "going  through  the  mail" 
by  the  inspectors,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  appropriate  their 
contents  in  the  shape  of  prison-made  trinkets  inclosed  to 
friends.  A  ring  which  I  had  bought  from  a  prisoner  and 
sent  as  a  souvenir  to  my  uncle,  an  officer  in  the  Union  ser- 
vice, was  never  received  by  him. 

Naturally,  men  in  such  wretched  surroundings  were  on 
the  alert  to  escape,  and  some  took  desperate,  often  fatal, 
chances  to  regain  their  liberty.  The  wall  of  twenty  feet, 
smooth  on  the  inside,  was  so  high,  the  sentinels  so  close  to- 
gether, and  the  approach  so  well  lighted  that  an  attempt 
to  scale  the  parapet  was  virtually  inviting  death.  The 
sentinels  were  on  a  walk-way  so  well  concealed  that  only 
their  heads  and  shoulders  could  be  seen.  At  night  strong 
reflectors  were  so  placed  that  while  the  prison  yard  was  as 
light  as  day  the  sentinels  were  invisible,  and  all  beyond  seemed 
doubly  dark.     A  ditch  sixteen  feet  wide  and  ten  feet  deep 

294 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

had  been  dug  just  inside  the  wall.  In  one  dash  for  the 
fence  two  prisoners  were  killed  and  several  captured.  The 
survivors  were  disciplined  by  being  tied  with  their  backs 
to  trees  all  through  the  remainder  of  the  night.  I  saw  them 
released  the  next  morning  in  a  most  pitiable  condition  of 
exhaustion.  On  another  occasion  between  thirty  and  forty 
prisoners  made  a  rush  for  the  fence  at  dark.  Ladders 
hastily  constructed  by  splicing  bits  of  plank  taken  from 
the  berths  were  used  to  scale  the  fence.  Armed  with  stones, 
pieces  of  wood,  and  bottles  filled  with  water,  they  over- 
turned an  outhouse  into  the  ditch,  crossed  on  this,  placed 
their  ladders  against  the  wall,  and  attacked  the  guards, 
all  of  whom  ran  away.  No  one  was  killed,  and  the  entire 
body  of  men  succeeded  in  getting  over  the  fence,  although 
several  were  recaptured  the  next  day. 

A  number  of  tunnels  were  projected,  but  only  one  was 
successfiil,  and  four  or  five  men  escaped.  The  night  fol- 
lowing, a  prisoner,  foolishly  hoping  the  outlet  had  not  been 
discovered,  essayed  the  same  route,  and  as  he  stuck  his  head 
out  the  heartless  guard  standing  at  the  hole,  without  giving 
the  unfortimate  man  a  chance  to  surrender,  placed  a  gun 
against  his  head  and  blew  his  brains  out. 

I  was  interested  in  two  tunnels,  one  of  which  had  to  be 
abandoned  on  account  of  filling  with  water  soon  after  it 
was  started.  In  the  other  a  shaft  eight  feet  deep  was  sunk 
in  the  comer  of  a  tent,  and  from  the  bottom  of  this  in  the 
direction  of  the  fence,  some  sixty  yards  away,  the  tunnel 
was  projected.  One  man  would  work  in  the  tunnel,  cut- 
ting the  loose  earth  or  sand  and  gravel  with  a  case-knife, 
and  putting  it  into  a  sack,  which  was  drawn  back  into  the 
tent,  and  the  contents  concealed  under  a  blanket  until  sun- 
down.    At  dusk,  after  tucking  the  last  few  inches  of  the 

295 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

legs  of  our  trousers  into  the  tops  of  our  socks,  we  would  fill 
up  from  above  with  as  much  loose  dirt  as  we  could  carry 
without  attracting  too  much  notice,  and  then  stroll  uncon- 
cernedly in  the  direction  of  "the  Potomac."  Reaching  the 
middle  of  one  of  the  various  planks  or  small  bridges  across 
this  stream,  the  trousers  leg  on  one  side  and  then  on  the 
other  would  be  pulled  out  of  the  sock  and  the  gravel  and 
sand  allowed  to  drop  into  the  water,  where  it  disappeared. 
When  very  near  completion  this  tunnel  also  was  discovered, 
to  our  great  disappointment. 

Of  the  cruel  indignities  to  which  the  prisoners  were  sub- 
jected I  witnessed  only  a  small  proportion.  I  saw  Corporal 
Augustus  Baker,  a  man  whose  heartless  conduct  toward  us 
entitles  him  to  painful  notoriety,  shoot  a  prisoner  for  leav- 
ing the  ranks  after  roll-call  was  ended  but  before  "Break 
ranks"  was  commanded.  The  man  was  too  eager  to  warm 
himself  at  a  fire  only  a  few  feet  distant  from  the  Hne.  It 
was  a  bitter  cold  morning;  the  poor  fellow  had  no  overcoat 
or  blanket  with  which  to  cover  himself,  and  he  ventured  to 
the  fire.  Baker  drew  his  pistol,  saying  with  an  oath,  "I'll 
show  you  how  to  leave  ranks  before  you  are  dismissed!" 
and  deliberately  shot  him  down.  The  wound  was  not  fatal, 
but  the  intent  was  murderous.  The  commanding  officer  tes- 
tified after  the  war  that  he  had  never  known  of  this  shooting. 

On  April  1 6,  1864,  one  guard,  at  a  single  shot,  the  minie 
ball  passing  through  the  bodies  of  both,  killed  James  Beattie 
and  Michael  Healy,  who  were  walking  in  front  of  him  on 
garbage  detail  outside  the  prison  quarters.  I  was  with 
one  of  these  men  as  he  was  dying,  and  heard  him  solemnly 
assert  in  the  presence  of  death  that  they  had  made  no  at- 
tempt to  escape,  had  disobeyed  no  order,  and  that  he  and 
his  comrade  had  been  deliberately  murdered. 

296 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

On  various  occasions  I  saw  prisoners  beaten  with  sticks 
for  no  other  provocation  than  that  they  would  not  move 
quickly  to  get  out  of  the  way  or  cease  talking  when  the 
patrol  was  passing.  At  one  time  I  saw  an  officer  with  a 
stick  of  firewood  knock  two  men  down,  leaving  them  un- 
conscious. To  discourage  all  efforts  at  escape  an  order  was 
enforced  that  a  prisoner  when  obliged  to  go  to  the  sink  at 
night  should  not  wear  a  coat.  Two  men  from  my  barracks 
one  intensely  cold  night  infringed  upon  this  rule,  were  de- 
tected, and  compelled  to  mark  time  in  the  deep  snow  for 
so  long  that  one  of  them  was  frost-bitten  and  parts  of  both 
feet  were  lost  from  gangrene.  He  died  from  exhaustion  on 
the  train  on  which  we  were  being  carried  to  Baltimore  in 
February,  1865. 

Another  constant  source  of  unhappiness  and  discomfort 
was  from  vermin.  Try  as  one  would,  it  seemed  impossible 
to  avoid  them.  Finally  the  nuisance  became  so  unbeara- 
ble that  the  Vigilance  Committee  in  our  barracks  forced  a 
general  inspection  and  cleaning-up.  Men  were  compelled 
to  strip,  their  hair  was  closely  cropped,  and  their  apparel 
dipped  in  a  caldron  of  scalding  water.  It  is  not  pleasant 
to  think,  much  less  to  write,  of  such  disgusting  conditions, 
but  I  feel  that  the  repiilsive  side  of  war  should  be  given 
along  with  the  heroic,  which  is  always  emphasized.  I  saw 
in  one  of  these  crusades  a  forlorn  wretch  standing  as  naked 
as  when  he  made  his  advent  into  the  world  trying  to  thaw 
out  his  wardrobe,  which  had  frozen  stiff  as  it  came  out  of 
the  boiling  water.  We  were  not  long  in  discovering  that  the 
law  of  gravitation  applied  to  vermin  as  well  as  to  other  pon- 
derable matter,  and  that  the  berths  of  the  top  row  were 
less  infested;  so  those  of  our  committee  and  the  cleaner  set 
quietly  organized  a  syndicate  and  bought  out  the  top  bunks. 


20 


297 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Our  efforts  at  exclusiveness  naturally  excited  comment, 
and  not  infrequently  we  were  referred  to  as  the  "top-bunk 
aristocracy."  United  States  Senator  Pasco,  now  living  at 
Monticello,  Florida,  was  among  our  select  group  of  top- 
bunkers. 

To  half  a  dozen  prisoners  who  could  command  the  means 
the  privilege  was  accorded  in  1864  of  having  constructed  at 
their  private  expense  a  small  one-room  shanty  and  of  living 
in  it.  I  was  invited  to  join  the  group,  and  I  would  have 
gladly  done  so  had  it  not  involved  the  desertion  of  my  two 
comrades  who  in  cold  weather  were  largely  dependent  on 
my  extra  blankets.  My  uncle,  Mr.  David  A.  Smith,  of 
Jacksonville,  Illinois,  who  as  a  young  man  had  practised 
law  in  the  same  circuit  with  Mr.  Lincoln  and  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  him,  secured  from  the  President  a  parole 
and  desired  me  to  come  and  live  with  him  and  continue  my 
studies  at  the  University  of  Illinois.  As  the  acceptance  of 
this  parole  until  the  war  was  over  would  carry  the  implica- 
tion of  desertion  in  case  an  exchange  of  prisoners  took  place, 
I  felt  bound  to  decline  the  generous  offer.  My  imcle  then 
endeavored  to  have  the  parole  modified  so  that  I  might 
remain  until  exchanged,  but  Mr.  Stanton  would  not  consent 
to  this.  It  was  a  great  temptation,  but  the  last  words  my 
mother  and  father  had  said  to  me  were,  "Don't  forget  that, 
although  you  are  only  a  boy  and  all  we  have,  we  would 
rather  have  you  come  home  in  a  coffin  than  dishonored." 

History  records  few  instances  of  the  considerate  treat- 
ment of  prisoners  of  war.  In  the  late  conflict  with  Russia 
the  conduct  of  Japan  stands  out  as  an  exception.  In  our 
war  both  sides  were  grievously  at  fault.  We  of  the  South- 
ern side  cannot  wholly;  excuse  Anderson ville,  albeit  we  have 
much  in  extenuation.     I  saw  this  prison-pen  two  months 

298 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

before  the  surrender,  and  no  good  reason  could  be  advanced 
for  not  providing  better  shelter  for  the  inmates.  The  ma- 
terial was  at  hand  in  the  great  pine  forests  in  sight,  and 
the  prisoners  should  have  been  made  to  protect  themselves. 
The  failure  to  do  this  was  due  to  that  indifference  which 
characterized  the  management  of  nearly  all  the  prison-pens 
on  both  sides.  The  fault  was  naturally  with  the  one  man 
who  was  actually  in  charge. 

When  in  1891  my  article  in  the  Century  Magazine  ex- 
cited so  much  discussion,  the  commandant  of  this  prison 
who  was  in  charge  during  my  imprisonment  testified  that  he 
had  never  heard  of  Corporal  Baker  shooting  a  prisoner.  I 
stood  within  a  few  yards  of  Baker  and  witnessed  the  whole 
cruel  proceeding.  There  were  other  witnesses.  Yet  the 
man  who  should  have  been  held  responsible  and  whose  duty 
it  was  to  protect  prisoners  never  knew  of  it  until  he  read 
my  article  twenty-seven  years  after  it  occurred. 

The  "retaliation  act"  of  the  United  States  government, 
reducing  in  1864  the  ration  of  the  prisoner  of  war,  was 
one  of  the  most  cruel  acts  of  this  unhappy  period.  This 
authorized  starvation  caused  the  death  of  thousands  by 
lowering  their  resistance  to  the  diseases  incident  to  ex- 
posure. The  Confederates  did  not  have  the  proper  food 
in  quality  or  quantity  to  give  to  their  prisoners.  The  rec- 
ords show  that  the  prisoners  at  Andersonville  were  getting 
the  ration  issued  to  the  Confederate  soldier  in  the  field.  In 
the  winter  of  1864-65  the  Confederate  commissary-general 
reported  that  "the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  was  living 
literally  from  hand  to  mouth."  Beef  sold  at  six  dollars  a 
pound,  and  flour  at  one  thousand  dollars  a  barrel.  At 
one  time,  pleading  with  his  government  for  food,  Lee 
said  that  for  three  days  his  men  had  been  in  line  of 

299 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

battle   and  had  not   tasted  meat.      These   are   truths  of 
record. 

At  the  North  there  was  no  such  excuse.  Their  granaries 
were  full,  and  the  world  was  open  to  them.  The  Union 
prisoners  at  Andersonville  were  in  general  unaccustomed  to 
coarse  corn  meal,  and  this,  with  the  conditions  due  to  a  hot 
climate  and  the  malarial  mosquito  and  other  insects  which 
spread  disease,  will  account  for  the  difference  in  the  ratio 
of  mortality.  The  official  records  of  the  United  States 
government  show  that  of  every  thousand  Federal  prisoners 
held  in  captivity  by  the  Confederacy  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
three  died.  At  Camp  Morton  the  records  show  that  one 
hundred  and  forty-six  of  every  thousand  died.  At  Ander- 
sonville three  hundred  and  thirty-three  of  every  thousand 
Union  prisoners  perished.  At  Elmira,  New  York,  two  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  of  every  thousand  Confederates  died 
(War  Department  Records). 

The  Confederates  had  no  quinine  to  check  the  ravages 
of  malaria.  They  appealed  directly  to  Washington  for  a 
supply  for  use  at  Andersonville,  and  offered  to  have  it  con- 
veyed by  the  agents  of  the  United  States  government  under 
proper  escort  and  distributed  by  them  to  the  prisoners. 
The  United  States  government  refused  to  accede  to  this 
humane  request.  Later  the  Confederates  offered  to  turn 
over  these  prisoners  without  exchange  if  the  Washington 
authorities  would  send  a  fleet  of  vessels  to  some  convenient 
point  on  the  coast  to  receive  them.  Several  months  elapsed 
before  these  ships  were  sent,  and  in  the  period  of  delay  sev- 
eral thousand  more  deaths  occurred.  Well  may  the  New 
England  historian  Rhodes  conclude,  "We  of  the  North  can- 
not afford  to  throw  stones  at  our  brethren  of  the  South  on 
the  question  of  the  treatment  of  prisoners." 

300 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

In  the  final  analysis  it  is  evident  that  the  real  cause  of 
all  the  suffering  and  death  which  the  retention  of  soldiers 
in  prison-camps  entailed  during  the  Civil  War  is  traceable 
to  the  war  policy  of  the  United  States  government,  which 
in  1863  refused  all  further  exchange  of  prisoners.  This 
was  a  part  of  General  Grant's  policy  of  attrition.  When 
forced  to  declare  the  real  reason  of  it  he  said:  *Tt  is  hard 
on  our  men  held  in  Southern  prisons  not  to  exchange  them; 
but  it  is  humanity  to  those  left  in  the  ranks  to  fight  our 
battles.  If  we  commence  a  system  of  exchange  we  will 
have  to  fight  on  until  the  whole  South  is  exterminated.  If 
we  hold  those  caught  they  amoimt  to  no  more  than  dead 
men." 

In  the  last  week  of  February,  1865,  I  was  included  in  a 
list  of  five  hundred  convalescents  too  feeble  to  fight  to  be 
sent  to  Richmond  for  exchange.  While  in  active  service 
in  the  field  I  had  never  missed  a  single  day  from  duty.  The 
pneumonia  contracted  in  the  cold,  damp  cell  in  the  Nash- 
ville penitentiary  was  followed  by  measles,  and  then  by  a 
dysentery  which  left  me  in  a  very  low  condition.  The  good 
doctor  took  pity  on  me  and  kept  me  on  light  hospital  duty, 
and  not  only  had  me  placed  on  the  list  for  exchange,  but, 
to  my  great  gratification,  included  the  name  of  an  able- 
bodied  friend  who  had  shown  me  great  kindness  during 
my  long  illness  and  who  was  detailed  as  an  orderly  to  look 
after  the  wants  of  the  invalid  prisoners  in  transit. 

There  have  been  few  happier  moments  in  my  life  than 
when  we  marched  out  of  the  prison-yard,  the  outside  of 
which  I  had  not  seen  for  sixteen  months.  At  the  station 
in  Indianapolis  we  were  placed  in  (freight)  box-cars,  the 
floors  of  which  were  covered  with  straw,  and  started  for 
Baltimore.     The  weather  was  cold,  the  rivers  we  crossed 

301 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

were  frozen  over,  and  the  country  covered  with  snow.  The 
only  fire  on  our  train  was  in  the  locomotive,  but  the  deep 
bed  of  straw  kept  us  fairly  warm.  Two  armed  guards  sat 
one  at  each  of  the  side-doors,  which  were  kept  partly  open 
for  ventilation.  Through  these  limited  apertures,  as  we 
passed  the  various  stations,  I  noticed  with  no  little  aston- 
ishment the  crowd  of  able-bodied  men  in  citizen  ^dress.  It 
was  plain  that  the  North  had  enough  at  home  for  another 
army  when  it  might  be  needed.  About  midnight,  as  we 
were  nearing  Cumberland,  Maryland,  rounding  a  short 
curve,  our  engine  collided  with  that  of  another  train.  I 
was  sound  asleep  and  did  not  hear  the  crash,  but  felt  my- 
self sliding  along  the  floor  with  a  pile  of  men  in  the  loose 
straw  in  which  we  were  lying  side  by  side  as  thick  as  we 
could  be  placed.  No  one  in  our  car  was  seriously  hurt. 
After  daylight  one  dead  man  was  removed.  He  was  the 
frost-bitten  prisoner  already  mentioned,  and  I  think  his 
death  was  due  to  exhaustion  as  much  as  to  accident.  We 
were  on  the  edge  of  a  high  bank  or  bluff,  and  just  below  on 
one  side  was  the  Potomac  River  solidly  frozen  over. 

From  the  station  in  Baltimore  we  were  marched  to  the 
wharf  and  placed  in  the  hold  of  a  large  transport.  As  we 
came  to  one  of  the  crossings  where  a  number  of  persons  were 
halted  to  let  us  file  by  I  noticed  standing  at  the  curb, 
within  a  few  feet  of  where  I  was  walking  in  the  street,  a 
woman  whose  dress  of  mourning  struck  me  as  being  in  har- 
mony with  the  sad  yet  beautiful  expression  of  her  face.  It 
was  the  first  womanly  face  I  had  seen  in  many  and  many 
a  day,  and  as  I  passed  gazing  into  her  eyes,  in  a  voice  so 
full  of  tenderness  and  sympathy  that  it  brought  the  tears 
to  my  own  she  said,  "God  bless  you,  my  child."  With  a 
mother's  intuition  she  had  read   my   thoughts,   and  as  I 

302 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

trudged  on  with  that  throng  of  prisoners,  thinking  of  my 
own  mother,  whom  I  hoped  soon  to  see,  I  could  not  rid 
myself  of  the  sad  thought  that  I  had  passed  in  the  shadow 
of  a  mother's  grief  for  her  boy  who  would  not  come  again. 
Were  I  an  artist,  how  I  would  love  to  paint  that  portrait ! 

And  what  strange  things  come  about!  Forty-five  years 
later  the  University  of  Maryland  did  me  the  very  great 
honor  of  conferring  on  me  the  degree  of  LL.D.,  and  I  went 
to  Baltimore  to  attend  the  graduating  exercises.  My  train 
was  twenty  minutes  late,  and  when  I  met  the  provost  at 
the  Opera  House  he  greeted  me  with :  ' '  Dr.  Wyeth,  we  were 
afraid  something  had  happened.  The  audience  is  waiting  a 
little  impatiently  for  your  address."  As  this  was  the  first 
intimation  I  had  received  that  I  was  expected  to  say  a  word, 
the  shock  I  experienced  may  be  imagined.  When  we  came 
on  the  stage,  and  I  faced  that  array  of  thousands — for  the 
vast  amphitheater,  aisles,  and  foyer  were  packed  with  loyal 
Marylanders — I  was  racking  my  brain  for  something  that 
might  appeal  to  their  sympathy.  In  that  critical  moment 
there  flashed  into  my  mind  the  memory  of  the  voice  and  the 
sad  face  that  greeted  me  long  ago,  and  when  the  great  wel- 
come those  dear  people  gave  me  was  hushed  I  tried  to  tell 
them  how  much  I  appreciated  it,  and  then  with  all  the  pathos 
with  which  I  was  able  to  invest  it  I  told  the  simple  story 
that  was  enacted  in  that  far-away  February  morning  in  1865. 
It  touched  every  heart,  and  I  knew  I  was  at  home. 

At  Fortress  Monroe,  in  sight  of  the  spars  of  the  Cumber- 
land, which  still  projected  above  the  water  where  the  Merri- 
mac  had  sent  her  hull  to  the  bottom,  we  were  transferred 
to  a  side-wheeler  and  landed  at  Aikens  Landing  on  the 
James  River,  some  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  by  land  from 
Richmond.     When  we  came  in  sight  of  our  fortifications 

303 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  were  turned  over  to  the  Confederate  agent,  those  who 
had  Hfe  enough  to  run  broke  for  the  works,  but  were  stopped 
and  led  single  file  along  a  zigzag  path  to  avoid  the  line  of 
torpedoes.  Several  miles  from  the  city  we  received  a  gen- 
erous ration  of  corn-pone.  At  dark,  worn  out  by  the  long 
walk  of  ten  hours,  we  straggled  into  the  capital  of  the  Con- 
federacy. The  signs  of  dissolution  were  in  the  air.  My 
companion  and  I  wandered  into  a  hospital  and  were  allowed 
to  spread  our  blankets  on  the  floor  between  two  of  a  long 
row  of  cots  in  one  of  the  wards.  At  daylight  we  took  up 
our  beds  and  walked.  In  a  small  shop  I  saw  a  single  cold 
baked  sweet-potato,  and,  as  two  years  had  elapsed  since  I 
had  tasted  so  great  a  luxury,  I  gave  five  dollars  for  it,  and 
the  same  for  half  a  pound  of  butter.  There  was  no  use  for 
anything  smaller  than  five  dollars;  and,  as  my  jacket  was 
padded  with  Confederate  money  I  had  bought  with  "chaws" 
of  tobacco  in  prison,  I  had  only  to  make  a  hole  in  the  lining 
to  draw  on  the  bank. 

In  the  shadow  of  the  Washington  statue  in  the  Capitol 
grounds,  my  friend  and  I  ate  a  rare  breakfast  of  corn-bread 
and  sweet-potato  and  butter.  Our  paroles  carried  with  them 
a  sick-leave  of  thirty  days,  and  at  dark  on  March  i,  1865,  we 
climbed  to  the  top  of  a  dilapidated  box-car,  which,  like  four 
others,  inside  and  out  was  packed  and  jammed  with  invalid, 
semi-invalid,  and  wounded  soldiers  sighing  for  their  homes. 
As  long  as  we  could  sit  on  the  runway  plank  in  the  middle 
of  the  car-roof  we  felt  fairly  safe;  but,  as  the  two  brakemen 
were  giving  a  continuous  performance  of  running  back  and 
forth  to  put  on  or  loosen  the  brakes,  we  spent  most  of  the 
night  holding  on  to  this  plank  to  keep  from  spilling  off  as 
we  rocked  and  bumped  along  at  a  six-miles-an-hour  rate. 
It  took  us  eighteen  hours  to  reach  Danville,  a  run  of  about 

304 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

one  hundred  and  ten  miles.  During  most  of  the  night  a 
cold,  drizzly  rainfall  made  it  unnecessary  to  be  on  the  look- 
out for  the  shower  of  sparks  which  the  wheezing,  dilapidated 
old  wood-burning  locomotive  was  ejecting  and  which  fell  on 
us  as  scorching  cinders. 

At  Danville  we  sat  down  to  a  table  and  ate  a  real  dinner 
for  the  first  time  in  nearly  two  years.  The  bill  was  thirty 
dollars  for  two;  but,  as  we  had  hot  corn-bread  and  sorghum 
molasses  for  dessert,  we  were  content. 

Our  next  transfer  point  was  Salisbury,  North  Carolina, 
and  here  I  made  a  lucky  strike.  Among  the  books  I  had 
read  and  laughed  over  in  our  home  library  was  one  entitled 
Major  Jones's  Courtship.  It  so  happened  that  the  author 
of  this  book  was  commissary  and  general  factotum  of  trans- 
portation here,  and  when  I  told  him  how  much  his  work 
was  prized  at  home,  and  in  a  general  and  quite  fair  way  for 
an  acquaintance  just  forming  showed  famiHarity  with  it  by 
appropriate  quotations,  my  friend  and  I  were  forwarded 
without  imnecessary  delay,  plus  two  days'  rations. 

The  railroad  gave  out  near  the  South  Carolina  line — and 
nearly  everything  else  except  the  kindness  of  heart  and  the 
courage  of  the  women  and  the  few  cripples  and  old  men 
who  lived  in  the  swath  of  desolation  cut  by  General  Sher- 
man, who  said  war  was  hell  and  realized  his  definition.  My 
friend  and  I  trudged  along  on  foot  day  after  day,  making 
anywhere  from  ten  to  twenty  miles  a  day,  eating  what  those 
noble  people  gave  us,  and  sleeping  on  their  porches  or  in 
the  empty  corn-cribs  or  stables.  We  were  too  fresh  from 
Camp  Morton  to  venture  into  the  beds  of  civilization.  The 
chief  article  of  diet  all  along  this  route  was  "lye-hominy," 
and  with  it  we  fared  very  well.  The  weather  was  getting 
warmer,  and  after  a  number  of  days  we  reached  Washing- 

305 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ton,  in  Wilkes  County,  and  again  found  railroad  transporta- 
tion. 

The  latest  news  I  had  from  my  parents  was  that  our  home 
had  been  burned,  and  that  they  and  my  two  sisters  had 
found  refuge  in  Lee  County,  Georgia,  near  Wooten  Station, 
on  the  Macon  &  Southwestern  Railroad.  At  Macon  we 
slept,  or  tried  to  sleep,  on  shuck  pallets  arranged  in  the  base- 
ment of  the  town-hall  for  transient  Confederate  soldiers. 
There  were  more  reasons  than  one  for  sitting  up — swarms 
of  them — and  one  excellent  reason  for  sitting  still,  since  the 
place  was  so  dark  that  he  who  ventured  forth  never  knew 
over  whom  he  would  fall  at  the  next  step.  Somewhere  in 
the  long  period  of  darkness  there  occurred  a  ludicrous  in- 
cident which  caused  a  great  deal  of  merriment  to  forty-eight 
of  the  fifty  unfortunate  mortals  who  were  wishing  it  were 
day.  One  veteran,  who  had  scratched  himself  into  a  frenzy, 
couldn't  hold  in  any  longer,  and,  being  convinced  at  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  that  the  President  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  was  responsible  for  all  our  woes,  growled  out 

savagely,  "G d Jeff  Davis,  anyhow!"     While  I  did 

not  approve  of  the  language  or  condone  the  sentiment,  far 
from  getting  angry  over  the  explosion  of  disloyalty,  I  thought 
it  something  to  laugh  at.  There  was  present,  however, 
down  toward  the  far  end  of  the  room,  a  man  who  took  a  dif- 
ferent view,  for  he  shouted,  "I  can  whip  any  d —  traitor 
who  curses  President  Davis!"  Although  neither  could  see 
the  other,  each  started  in  the  general  direction  of  his  un- 
known antagonist,  and,  of  course,  fell  over  the  man  and  the 
pallet  next  to  him.  In  the  general  confusion  which  ensued 
forty-eight  of  us,  who  were  grateful  for  anything  that  prom- 
ised merriment,  voted  the  fight  a  draw  and  laughed  the 
other  two  into  good-humor.     At  the  peep  of  day  my  bunk- 

306 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

mate  and  I  sought  the  station  and  boarded  the  first  train 
for  Wooten  Station,  where  we  arrived  in  the  afternoon. 

We  drove  the  three  miles  to  the  plantation,  and  surprised 
my  mother  and  the  home  folks,  who  had  not  heard  from  me 
for  a  long  time.  It  was  to  me  the  one  never-to-be-forgotten 
home-coming. 

Without  consultation  with  the  new  arrivals  a  wash-tub 
of  hot  water,  soap,  towels,  and  two  complete  changes  of 
clothing  were  provided  in  one  of  the  outhouses  from  which 
we  emerged  wearing  misfit  smts  belonging  to  my  father  and 
my  sister's  husband.  While  this  remote  comer  of  Georgia 
had  been  drawn  on  heavily  for  supplies,  it  was  so  far  removed 
from  the  scene  of  hostilities  that  there  remained  a  plentiful 
supply  of  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  these  my  companion 
and  I  enjoyed  to  the  fullest. 

By  the  time  my  furlough  expired  the  war  was  practically 
over,  although  we  had  not  yet  heard  of  Lee's  surrender  nor 
of  Lincoln's  assassination.  Deeming  it  my  duty  to  report 
to  my  regiment,  supposed  to  be  in  front  of  Wilson  in  middle 
Alabama,  I  started  thither,  reaching  Macon,  Georgia,  on 
the  2oth,  just  as  Wilson's  riders  came  into  the  outskirts  of 
the  city.  Seeing  a  company  of  Georgia  State  troops  in 
line  near  the  railroad-station,  I  joined  them.  We  were  told 
to  march  into  the  breastworks.  We  had  not  proceeded  far 
when  we  were  halted  by  an  officer,  who  said  he  had  orders 
from  General  Howell  Cobb  to  surrender  Macon  and  its 
garrison  to  the  Federal  commander.  I  remarked  to  the 
miilitia  officer  in  charge  of  the  company  to  which  I  had 
attached  myself  that  I  did  not  consider  that  General  Cobb 
had  any  authority  over  me,  as  I  belonged  to  General  For- 
rest's corps,  adding  that  I  had  just  come  out  of  a  Northern 
prison  and  would  rather  die  than  go  back,  and  intended  to 

307 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

try  to  escape.  He  was  a  plucky  young  man,  and  he  said 
at  once,  "If  it's  as  bad  as  that  I'll  go  with  you."  The 
Union  cavalry  by  this  time  were  galloping  toward  us,  and 
stray  shots  were  heard  as  he  and  I  ran  across  the  street  in 
front  of  the  Brown  House,  then  the  leading  hotel  in  JMa- 
con,  and  dodged  into  the  Southwestern  Railroad  station. 
Through  this  we  hastened  at  our  best  speed  and  ran  out 
along  the  track  across  the  open  stretch  to  the  palmetto 
thickets  in  the  Ocmulgee  bottoms.  We  were  not  the  only 
fugitives,  and  as  we  sped  across  the  open  space  for  four  or 
five  hundred  yards  there  was  a  scattering  fusillade.  I  did 
not  hear  any  bullets  whizzing  our  way,  and  doubt  very 
much  whether  any  of  the  shots  were  aimed  at  us. 

It  was  now  getting  quite  dark,  and  we  continued  along 
the  edge  of  the  brake,  bearing  south.  About  ten  o'clock 
we  approached  a  camp-fire,  and,  crawling  toward  it,  came 
near  enough  to  recognize  Federals  around  it.  Passing 
around  them,  we  came  to  the  track  of  the  Southwestern 
Railroad  and  continued  down  that  to  a  point  twelve  miles 
beyond  Macon,  where  we  slept  the  rest  of  the  night.  At 
daylight  we  continued  to  follow  the  track,  and  about  noon 
my  comrade  and  I  saw  a  man  walking  toward  us.  As  he 
came  near  I  noticed  he  was  young,  not  more  than  twenty- 
five,  and  dressed  in  citizen's  clothes.  His  face,  neck,  and 
hands  were  tanned  very  brown,  and  when  I  greeted  him  and 
he  replied  I  detected  at  once  his  Northern  accent  and  sus- 
pected he  was  an  escaping  prisoner  from  Andersonville, 
which  camp  was  located  on  this  road  a  few  miles  farther 
south.  I  warned  him  he  was  our  prisoner,  and  he  broke 
down,  crying,  "For  God's  sake,  don't  take  me  back  to  that 
place!"  The  young  officer  and  I  were  deeply  touched  by 
his  plea,  and  we  felt  that  we  would  not  be  doing  an  act  of 

30S 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

disloyalty  by  paroling  this  young  fellow  and  letting  him 
go  on  to  his  comrades  in  Macon,  which  place  we  told  him 
he  could  reach  by  dark  if  he  kept  up  a  stiff  pace.  We  took 
him  to  a  house,  wrote  out  a  parole,  which  he  swore  to  and 
signed,  and  we  copied.  I  gave  him  twenty  dollars  in  Con- 
federate money  and  a  small  piece  of  corn-bread.  I  wrote 
out  and  gave  him  the  name  and  address  of  a  relation  in 
Illinois,  to  whom  I  requested  him  to  write  when  he  arrived 
at  his  home  in  Connecticut.  He  was  the  most  grateful 
human  being,  I  think,  I  ever  saw.  At  Fort  Valley  we 
caught  a  train  which  had  ventured  that  far  toward  Macon, 
and  our  walking  ended.  I  reached  the  plantation  next 
day.  The  war  was  over,  and  my  career  as  a  solider  had 
ended. 

JOHN  JONES 

An  experience  of  my  prison  life  proved  to  me  the  truth 
of  the  maxim  that  "misery  makes  strange  bedfellows." 
The  misery  of  Camp  Morton  brought  me  in  contact  with  a 
man  for  whom  I  formed  a  deep  and  lasting  friendship,  and 
yet  one  whose  identity  was  never  revealed.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  my  small  stature,  boyish  appearance,  and  generally 
pitiable  condition  appealed  to  his  syrapathy.  I  had  been 
seriously  ill  with  pneumonia,  complicated  with  an  attack 
of  measles,  and  was  just  convalescent  enough  to  be  dis- 
charged from  the  hospital  and  sent  back  to  one  of  the  cold, 
uncomfortable,  and  desolate  cattle-sheds  in  which  we  were 
partially  sheltered,  and  which  only  by  military  courtesy  were 
called  barracks.  I  was  the  "small  boy"  of  the  prison  yard, 
as  I  had  been  of  the  regiment,  and  I  remember  how  long  it 
seemed  to  me  before  I  "grew  up."  On  one  occasion  a  good- 
hearted  lady  in  a  surprised  way  asked  me  if  I  was  a  soldier, 

309 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  when  I  told  her  I  was  she  said,  "Well,  you  ought  to  be 
at  home  with  your  mother." 

I  was  alone,  walking  up  and  down  the  inclosure  not  only 
for  exercise  but  to  keep  warm,  when  a  fellow-prisoner  whom 
I  had  never  before  observed  fell  in  by  my  side,  and,  with 
the  very  truthful  remark,  **  You  look  himgry, "  handed  me 
two  warm  biscuits  which  he  took  out  of  his  coat  pocket.  As 
I  hadn't  seen  a  biscuit  in  a  very  long  while,  my  expression 
must  have  told  him  that  I  was  not  only  gratified  but  sur- 
prised; and  when  I  asked  him  where  he  got  them  he  said, 
"I'm  head  cook  in  the  hospital  kitchen."  My  new  ac- 
quaintance was  fully  ten  years  my  senior,  of  ordinary  height, 
well  built,  and  of  erect,  military  carriage.  Despite  our  mis- 
erable and  imclean  surroundings  he  was  noticeably  neat 
in  appearance.  Handsome  of  face,  he  possessed  that  to 
me  always  attractive  and  comparatively  rare  combination 
dark-blue  eyes  and  a  fair  complexion  with  very  black  hair, 
eyebrows,  and  mustache.  There  was  that  indefinable  some- 
thing about  his  expression  which  told  one  that  despite  the 
quiet  dignity  which  was  in  evidence  as  he  spoke  it  would 
be  best  not  to  tread  on  his  toes  imless  by  accident.  He  told 
me  his  name  was  John  Jones  and  that  his  home  was  in 
northern  Arkansas.  He  was  too  resourceful  to  spend  a 
cold  and  hungry  winter  in  an  overcrowded  prison-shed  and 
had  found  a  soft  berth  in  the  hospital  kitchen,  which  he  re- 
tained as  long  as  he  stayed  in  Camp  Morton. 

Had  I  been  a  younger  brother  he  could  not  have  shown  a 
greater  solicitude  or  have  watched  over  me  with  more  ten- 
der care.  In  the  hours  which  did  not  demand  his  presence 
at  his  duties  we  would  walk  together,  or  when  I  was  laid 
up,  which  was  much  of  the  time,  he  would  sit  with  me  and 
wait  on  me,  seemingly  without  a  thought  for  himself.    When, 

310 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  February,  1865,  five  hundred  "hopeless  invalids"  were 
called  off  for  parole  to  be  sent  South,  and  I  was  of  the  num- 
ber, he  and  I  asked  that  he  be  included  as  a  hospital  nurse 
to  wait  on  the  more  helpless  invalids;  and  we  came  away 
together.  From  Richmond  he  accompanied  me  to  the  ref- 
ugee home  of  my  parents  in  southwest  Georgia.  Much 
of  this  wearisome  journey  was  made  on  foot,  and  the  spring 
rains  made  the  walking  bad  and  the  streams  deep,  and 
through  these  my  devoted  comrade  waded  with  me  astride 
his  back,  as  if  I  were  a  child  to  be  kept  from  a  wetting.  The 
joy  of  our  arrival  in  the  home  of  cleanliness  and  ."peace 
and  plenty  is  mentioned  elsewhere.  After  resting  and  recu- 
perating some  two  or  three  weeks,  he  told  me  he  intended 
to  make  his  way  across  the  Mississippi  to  visit  his  home, 
from  which  he  had  not  heard  for  several  years. 

As  we  were  parting  he  said:  "When  the  time  comes,  if 
I  reach  home  safely,  I  will  write  you  my  real  name  and  tell 
you  why  I  have  been  under  an  assumed  name  for  the  last 
three  years.  I  can  tell  you  this  much,  that  you  may  know 
there  was  nothing  of  dishonor  in  what  I  did.  Soon  after 
the  Union  army  occupied  our  section  of  northern  Arkansas 
one  of  their  officers  was  guilty  of  a  gross  insult  to  one  of  my 
sisters,  and  I  shot  him  dead.  I  was  outlawed,  of  course,  and 
escaped  to  the  South  and  volimteered  under  the  name  by 
which  you  knew  me  in  prison." 

From  some  point  in  Mississippi  he  wrote  that  he  was 
having  great  difficulty  in  getting  across  the  river,  which  had 
overflowed  the  lowlands  and  was  twelve  miles  wide.  He 
declared  that  he  would  try  to  make  his  way  across,  and  that 
he  was  just  starting  to  make  the  attempt  alone  in  a  small 
canoe.  That  was  the  last  from  my  faithful  comrade  and 
friend.     To  pick  one's  way  through  a  maze  of  tree-tops  and 

311 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

driftwood,  through  ten  miles  of  dead  water  without  a  channel 
or  landmark  to  steer  by,  was  a  hopeless  task ;  and  I  have 
never  doubted,  since  after  the  reconstruction  period  he 
failed  to  write  or  visit  me,  that  he  perished  in  the  daring 
venture. 


XXI 

AFTER   THE   WAR 

When  the  prison  tunnel  in  which  I  was  interested  was 
near  completion,  on  the  day  before  the  attempt  to  escape 
was  to  be  made  I  removed  the  heel  of  one  boot,  and  with 
my  knife  made  a  cavity  in  the  thick  leather  large  enough 
to  hold  a  ten  and  a  five  dollar  greenback  bill,  which  my 
aunt  who  came  to  visit  me  while  I  was  in  the  hospital  with 
pneumonia  had  given  me.  The  bills  were  folded  or  crumpled 
into  the  smallest  possible  bulk,  which  for  better  protection 
was  enveloped  in  a  bit  of  letter-paper,  and  the  heel  nailed 
again  in  place.  When  the  attempt  failed  I  had  no  need  of 
the  money,  and  I  allowed  it  to  remain  undisturbed  until 
I  reached  home  some  four  months  later.  When  the  war 
ended  a  month  thereafter  this  was  the  sum  total  of  current 
funds  in  our  immediate  family. 

All  the  railroads  in  the  South  which  coiild  be  operated 
were  taken  over  and  run  by  the  United  States  government, 
which  gave  our  family  transportation  to  Decatur,  Alabama, 
by  train  and  thence  up  the  Tennessee  by  steamboat  to 
where  Guntersville  had  been.  With  the  exception  of  half 
a  dozen  dwellings,  which  were  spared  because  they  sheltered 
the  sick  or  wounded  too  feeble  to  be  removed,  the  village 
had  disappeared.  Nothing  but  tumble-down  walls  and  a 
mass  of  brick  debris  was  left  of  our  home.  The  nearest 
shelter  which  could  be  obtained  was  in  a  log  house  on  Sand 
2^  3^3 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Mountain,  five  miles  from  town,  and  in  this  my  parents 
found  a  temporary  abode.  We  were  not  wholly  unprepared 
for  the  scene  of  desolation  about  us.  As  we  came  west  on 
the  train  nothing  but  lonesome-looking  chimneys  remained 
of  the  villages  and  farm-houses.  They  were  suggestive  of 
tombstones  in  a  graveyard.  Bridgeport,  Stevenson,  Belle- 
fonte,  Scotsboro,  Larkinsville,  Woodville,  Paint  Rock  —  in 
fact,  every  town  in  northern  Alabama  to  and  including  De- 
catur (except  Huntsville,  which,  being  used  as  headquarters, 
had  been  spared) — had  been  wiped  out  by  the  war  policy  of 
starvation  by  fire.  Farm-houses,  gins,  fences,  and  cattle 
were  gone.  From  a  hilltop  in  the  farming  district  a  few 
miles  from  New  Market  I  counted  the  chimneys  of  the 
houses  of  six  different  plantations  which  had  been  de- 
stroyed. About  the  fireplaces  of  some  of  these,  small  huts 
of  poles  had  been  erected  for  temporary  shelter. 

Northern  Alabama  had  paid  dearly  for  the  devotion  of 
her  people  to  the  cause  of  the  South.  Nowhere  in  the  Con- 
federacy had  such  ruin  been  wrought,  save  in  the  path  of 
desolation  along  which  the  march  to  the  sea  was  made,  or 
perhaps  in  the  valley  of  Virginia,  in  obedience  to  the  order 
to  leave  it  so  desolate  that  "a  crow  flying  over  would  have 
to  carry  its  rations."  Our  county  of  Marshall  had  suffered 
in  a  double  sense,  being  overrun  for  the  last  year  and  a  half 
of  the  war  by  bands  of  marauders  who  robbed  the  defense- 
less people  of  the  little  the  two  armies  had  left.  The  story 
of  their  forays  would  make  a  bloody  record.  The  narration 
of  one  tragedy  which  was  enacted  on  a  small  island  in  the 
Tennessee  River  may  give  an  idea  of  the  awful  conditions 
which  prevailed.  Buck  Island  was  then  almost  wholly  cov- 
ered with  dense  cane.  Hither  five  men,  non-combatants, 
had  fled  for  a  hiding-place,  and  had  taken  with  them  the 

314 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

few  cattle  which  had  escaped  impressment.  In  the  depths 
of  the  cane-brake  they  had  constructed  a  pole  cabin  for 
shelter.  A  Confederate  soldier  named  C.  L.  Hardcastle,^ 
wounded  and  on  furlough,  a  relation  or  friend  and  neighbor, 
slipping  in  to  visit  his  family,  came  to  stay  all  night  with 
the  refugees.  Toward  morning  they  were  aroused  from 
sleep  to  find  their  cabin  surrounded  and  themselves  in  the 
hands  of  the  notorious  Ben  Harris  and  his  band,  who  had 
learned  of  their  retreat  and  had  come  for  their  cattle. 
Being  a  far-sighted  man  and  well  known  to  the  Rodens 
and  their  guest,  Harris  gave  them  five  minutes  for  prayer, 
after  which  he  made  them  stand  in  a  row  along  the  river- 
bank,  and,  to  make  sure  of  a  clean  job,  with  his  six-shooter 
he  put  a  bullet  through  the  hearts  of  five  of  the  six  and 
thought  he  had  done  the  same  with  the  sixth  man.  This 
man  was  Hardcastle,  who  told  me  that  as  Harris  came  down 
the  line,  placing  the  muzzle  close  to  the  left  side  of  the  chest 
of  each  victim  as  he  fired,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  drop 
quickly  a  Uttle  before  he  was  shot,  which  he  did,  and  the 
ball  missed  a  vital  spot.  Feigning  death,  he  was  dragged 
with  the  other  five  bodies  and  thrown  into  the  river,  the 
current  of  which  washed  them  down-stream  as  they  were 
sinking.  Holding  his  breath,  he  floated  under  some  drift- 
wood lodged  against  a  fallen  tree  and  concealed  himself 
behind  a  log.  The  bullet  had  struck  a  rib  and  taken  a 
superficial  course.  When  the  murderers  walked  off  to 
round  up  the  cattle  he  crawled  out  and  into  the  cane,  and 
in  this  way  made  this  marvelous  escape  from  death.  I 
knew  the  men  who  were  killed. 

The  war  experiences  of  the  home  people  were,  however, 

^  This- man,  a  respected  citizen,  still  survives  (1914),  at  Margenim,  in  Jack- 
son County,  Alabama.     The  details  of  this  gruesome  tragedy  I  had  from  him, 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

not  wholly  tragic.  There  were  occasional  glimpses  of  the 
serio-comic  in  which  the  comical  features  predominated. 
Our  natures  are  such  that  we  love  to  turn  away  from  sad 
things  and  forget  them  by  laughing  when  we  may.  One  of 
these  experiences  was  Uncle  Dan's  retreat  from  Gunters- 
ville  when  the  Union  batteries  first  shelled  this  unfortunate 
village.  Another,  as  the  sheriff  related  it,  was  his  narrow 
escape  from  the  Fourth  Ohio  Cavalry  when  in  1862  it 
dashed  into  the  town  early  one  morning,  to  the  surprise  of 
everybody;  but  I  have  yet  to  tell  how  two  young  lads 
belonging  to  the  same  company  surprised  and  captured 
themselves  in  the  streets  of  their  native  village  in  1864. 

The  two  actors  were  playmates  of  mine  who  were  old 
enough  to  see  service  as  "Home  Guards"  the  last  year  or 
two  of  the  war.  They  told  it  on  themselves  to  me,  and  it 
was  witnessed  by  several  residents.  During  all  of  1864  and 
the  spring  of  1865  IVIarshall  County  was  the  scene  of  active 
hostilities,  not  only  between  scouting  parties  of  regular 
soldiers  of  the  Union  and  Confederate  armies,  but  between 
bands  of  Tory  marauders,  who  paraded  in  Federal  uniforms, 
and  small  squads  of  Confederate  Home  Guards  under  par- 
tisan leaders.  Some  few  of  the  Tories  had  been  Union  men 
all  along,  but  were  wise  enough  to  keep  discreetly  quiet 
until  the  Federals  occupied  the  country.  Most  of  them 
were  poor  whites  who  had  dodged  conscription  by  hiding 
out  in  the  mountains  near  their  cabins  when  the  Confederates 
were  in  control,  and  came  into  view  as  soon  as  the  Federals 
appeared.  Some  few  were  deserters  from  our  army,  but  all 
were  united  now  in  their  love  of  country  by  the  cohesive 
strength  of  a  desire  to  plunder  the  helpless.  As  these  men 
of  the  two  sides  had  known  one  another  before  the  war,  it 
may  be  imagined  that  what  is  described  as  "feeling"  ran 

316 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

about  as  "high  "  between  them  as  it  could  run.  Toward  the 
last  it  was  considered  a  waste  of  time  to  surrender,  even  if 
cornered  without  hope  of  escape.  The  recognized  practice 
was  to  sell  out  as  dearly  as  possible  and  keep  shooting 
as  long  as  a  trigger  could  be  pulled. 

Ben  Harris  had  led  off  in  a  practice  of  extermination 
which  put  Cromwell  to  the  blush.  The  conqueror  of  Ire- 
land knocked  only  ever}'  tenth  prisoner  on  the  head,  but 
Captain  Ben  overlooked  none,  and  just  to  be  sure  that  no 
detail  was  omitted  he  was  his  own  executioner.  I  have  told 
of  the  six  he  stood  up  in  a  row  and  shot  on  Buck  Island,  and 
there  were  others.  When  the  Home  Guards  caught  up  with 
the  Tories,  their  former  neighbors,  and  any  survived  the 
immediate  collision  by  throwing  up  their  hands,  they  were 
carried  by  what  was  known  as  "the  Short  Road  to  Gads- 
den." One  hour  was  considered  time  enough  for  the  guards 
to  make  the  seventy-two-mile  trip  to  this  particular  Gads- 
den and  return. 

On  the  day  in  question  Bent  Adams,  from  a  command- 
ing eminence,  scanned  the  valley  and  saw  hanging  on  the 
clothes-line  in  his  mother's  3'ard  something  white,  which 
signal  meant  "the  town  is  clear."  Had  it  been  red  or  blue, 
Bent  woiild  have  rested  content  upon  the  distant  heights. 
As  it  was,  he  rode  into  the  village,  and,  sitting  on  his  horse 
(for  in  those  perilous  days  nobody  dismounted  in  town), 
was  conversing  with  his  mother  at  the  gate.  Tom  Ander- 
son, a  member  of  Bent's  squad,  had  from  another  hill  also 
read  the  signals,  and  he  cautiously  rode  into  the  suburbs. 
Having  been  successful  as  scouts,  these  two  enterprising 
youths  had  acquired  and,  as  it  was  a  frosty  morning,  were 
wearing  each  a  warm,  very  blue  Yankee  overcoat.  As 
Tom's  horse  turned  the  comer  of  Main  Street,  some  three 

317 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

hundred  yards  off,  and  he  saw  a  lone  Yankee  or  Tory — he 
wasn't  sure  which — in  the  road  ahead  of  him  his  first  im- 
pulse was  to  turn  and  run;  but  Bent  was  too  quick  for  him 
and  ran  first.  Neither  of  these  two  men  was  a  coward,  but 
the  circumstances  fully  justified  what  Sheriff  James  Swiverly 
called  "quick  action"  and  the  practice  of  that  discretion 
which  ancient  Falstaff  declared  to  be  "the  better  part  of 
valor,"  Bent  didn't  know  how  many  more  Yankees  were 
coming  round  the  corner  following  their  leader,  and  felt  sure 
it  was  better  to  gain  the  other  side  of  the  Long  Bridge,  a  mile 
away,  and  find  out  there  than  to  take  the  foolish  risk  of 
allowing  a  whole  squad  to  get  right  on  him  at  full  speed  be- 
fore he  started.  Therefore  he  wheeled  and  ran  as  fast  as 
his  steed  could  go. 

Seeing  only  one  Yankee  or  Tory,  and  that  one  running 
away,  Tom  changed  his  mind  and  tactics  simultaneously, 
and,  whipping  out  his  six-shooter,  he  stuck  the  spurs  to  his 
charger  and  began  pursuit.  For  half  a  mile  down  Main 
Street  the  two  horsemen  sped,  the  women  and  children  lean- 
ing out  of  the  windows,  not  certain  whether  it  was  a  fight 
or  a  horse-race,  Tom's  mount  was  so  much  superior  to 
Bent's  that  by  the  time  the  latter  was  checking  up  to  make 
a  safe  turn  around  the  corner  at  Corn  well's  store  to  get  into 
the  straight  reach  of  roadway  leading  to  the  bridge  the  pur- 
suer was  near  enough  to  begin  to  empty  his  army  pistol 
at  the  fugitive,  who,  to  avoid  being  hit,  was  now  lying  as 
flat  on  his  horse's  neck  as  his  anatomy  could  be  applied. 
Having  made  the  turn  with  safety,  Bent  ventured  to  glance 
back,  and,  seeing  only  a  single  pursuer  who  had  already 
expended  four  of  his  six  shots  without  effect  while  his  own 
battery  was  as  yet  intact,  took  his  pistol  out  of  the  holster 
and  eased  up  on  his  speed,  determined  to  settle  accounts  at 

318 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

close  quarters.  A  few  moments  later,  pulling  the  reins 
and  wheeling  suddenly  about,  he  was  in  the  act  of  firing 
into  Tom's  chest  at  close  range  when  Thomas,  recognizing 
his  chum,  yelled  out  as  loud  and  distinctly  as  he  could 
shape  the  sentence,  "Don't  shoot,  Bent;  it's  me!"  and 
Bent,  not  yet  lowering  his  weapon,  replied:  "Tom,  you  d — 
fool!    I've  a  great  notion  to  blow  your  brains  out,  anyhow." 

A  distressing  feature  of  the  situation  in  our  section  was 
that  the  returning  soldiers  reached  home  too  late  to  plant 
a  crop;  and,  as  the  fields  were  uncultivated  in  1864,  the 
country  was  destitute  of  the  simplest  necessities  of  life. 
My  father  had  built  a  small  room  or  shed,  taking  advantage 
of  the  fireplace  and  chimney  of  his  former  office,  and  began 
to  re-establish  his  law  practice,  coming  to  town  three  days 
of  each  week.  As  the  courts  had  not  been  reopened,  he  had 
little  or  no  law  business,  but  he  had  many  calls  for  help 
to  which  he  was  sorrowfully  unable  to  respond.  In  the 
adjoining  counties  of  Blount  and  De  Kalb  the  same  dis- 
tressing conditions  prevailed,  and  finally  he  was  told  that 
one  or  two  persons  had  died  of  starvation.  Within  six  hours 
he  was  on  the  way  north  to  procure  supplies.  At  Nash- 
ville, Louisville,  Cincinnati,  and  elsewhere  he  told  of  the  dis- 
tress and  suffering  of  our  section,  and  the  generous  people  of 
those  cities  came  nobly  to  the  rescue.  Train-loads  of  com- 
missary supplies  and  clothing  were  forwarded  by  the  Louis- 
ville &  Nashville  Railroad  without  charge  for  transporta- 
tion. He  established  relief  stations  in  each  of  the  three 
counties  of  Marshall,  Blount,  and  De  Kalb,  and  there  was 
no  more  starvation.  The  crops  of  1866  came  to  the  rescue, 
and  the  days  of  hunger  and  extreme  poverty  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Tennessee  were  of  the  past. 

Meanwhile,  I  had  found  employment  as  superintendent 

319 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  a  large  cotton  plantation  in  Franklin  County,  where  at  a 
salary  of  fifty  dollars  a  month  I  remained  for  eighteen 
months,  living  happily  as  a  member  of  a  refined  family  and 
the  trusted  agent  of  a  generous  and  appreciative  employer. 
I  had  hoped  the  active,  out-of-door  life  of  a  planter  might 
enable  me  to  rally  from  the  effects  of  the  long  illness  in 
prison;  but  a  cough,  which  followed  the  complication  of 
pneumonia  with  measles,  still  held  on.  Reluctantly  I  re- 
signed my  position  and  sought  a  healthier  environment  in 
my  father's  new  home  on  the  dry,  elevated  plateau  of  Sand 
Mountain,  a  spur  of  the  Appalachian  Range.  With  a  splen- 
did saddle-horse  and  a  waterproof  outfit  that  defied  the 
most  inclement  weather  I  lived  out  of  doors  for  a  year  in 
the  rare  atmosphere  of  this  salubrious  region,  buying  and 
selling  cattle  and  produce.  In  1867  I  began  the  study  of 
medicine,  matriculating  in  the  Medical  Department  of  the 
University  of  Louisville  for  the  session  ending  March,  1868, 
and  for  the  same  period  the  following  session,  graduating 
in  1869. 

In  the  four  years  which  had  elapsed  since  the  soldiers  of 
the  Confederacy  had  returned  to  their  homes,  laboring  for 
the  support  of  their  families  and  the  rehabilitation  of  their 
country,  there  was  being  attempted  by  the  leaders  of  the 
radical  wing  of  the  Republican  party  then  in  power  the 
perpetration  of  the  most  monstrous  political  crime  in  the 
records  of  history.  The  infamy  which  is  associated  with 
the  partition  of  Poland  sinks  into  insignificance  when  com- 
pared to  that  which  justly  attaches  to  the  effort  to  hold 
in  subjection  to  an  alien  negro  race,  but  a  few  months  before 
in  bondage,  the  white  people  of  the  South,  the  former 
owners  of  these  freedmen. 

Keeping  alive  the  bitterness  which  a  long  and  bloody 

320 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

civil  war  had  engendered,  under  the  adroit  leadership  of 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  Ben  Wade,  and  James  G.  Blaine,  this  im- 
mortal triumvirate  of  "Wavers  of  the  Bloody  Shirt "'  so  played 
upon  the  fears  and  prejudices  of  the  electorate  of  the  North 
as  to  maintain  themselves  in  power  for  years  and  to  secure  in 
the  national  Congress  legislation  favorable  to  their  schemes. 

To  the  freed  slaves  the  franchise  was  given  without  re- 
strictions. The  only  qualification  was  color  and  a  certifi- 
cate of  slavery.  The  best  white  people  of  the  South  were 
not  allowed  to  vote.  My  father  was  disfranchised,  while  Pey- 
ton, one  of  our  former  slaves,  who  still  lived  with  us,  perform- 
ing the  same  service  he  had  done  before  he  was  freed,  an- 
nounced himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  legislature !  A  com- 
pany of  negro  troops  garrisoned  my  native  town  where  my 
parents  and  sisters  were  living,  and  another  was  stationed  in 
Tuscumbia,  the  county-seat  of  Franklin,  where  I  was  working. 

Backed  by  these  soldiers — for  the  Southern  states  were 
partitioned  off  in  military  districts — elections  were  held, 
and  the  state  and  county  governments  were  handed  over 
to  a  horde  of  adventiu"ers,  the  "carpet-baggers,"  who, 
hailing  from  all  quarters  of  the  earth  where  many  of  them 
had  neither  local  habitation  nor  name,  swarmed  into  the 
country;  to  the  "scalawags,"  the  unrecognized  and  unprin- 
cipled "down  and  out"  white  natives;  and  last,  but  not 
least,  to  the  negroes,  their  easily  handled  tools,  stunned  al- 
most to  irresponsibility  by  the  suddenness  of  their  advance- 
ment and  pitifully  drunk  with  power.  Small  wonder  that 
for  a  while  this  combination  ran  riot  with  the  South.  The 
situation  was  fitly  described  by  the  negro  who  said,  "De 
bottom  rail's  on  top  now."  ^ 

^  It  is  gratifying  to  record  that  among  the  number  who  had  seen  actual 
service  in  the  Union  army,  and  who  in  the  spirit  of  adventure  came  into  the 

321 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

At  first  the  ex- Confederates  were  submissive  and  silent. 
They  looked  on  at  the  strange  happenings  with  sadness  and 
amazement,  and  later  with  indignation,  as  they  realized 
that  the  safety  of  their  wives  and  children  was  endangered. 
The  awakening  came  when  the  carpet-baggers  and  scala- 
wags imdertook  to  effect  the  military  organization  of  the 
freedmen  in  the  various  counties  and  states.  It  was  then 
that  there  sprang  into  existence,  almost  in  a  single  night, 
throughout  the  southern  country  that  weird  invisible  army 
whose  weapon  was  Terror.  The  Ku-Klux  Klan  in  its  origin 
was  composed  of  the  best  citizens  of  the  South,  principally 
young  men,  many  of  whom  had  grown  up  while  the  war 
was  going  on,  but  led  by  the  veteran  soldiers  of  the  Con- 
federacy. 

The  history  of  my  own  county  will  suffice  to  illustrate  the 
method  of  the  Klan.  The  negroes  were  meeting  at  night  in 
the  suburbs  of  Guntersville,  where  they  were  harangued 
and  drilled  by  a  carpet-bagger  who  had  had  himself  elected 
to  some  profitable  office.  Within  a  fortnight  an  ex-lieu- 
tenant of  my  company  and  an  ex-captain  of  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia,  without  reproach  both  as  soldiers  and 
citizens,  disguised  with  masks  and  gowns,  late  at  night,  at 
the  muzzle  of  a  pistol  arrested  this  man,  conducted  him 
into  the  woods  a  mile  from  the  village,  stripped  him  to  the 
waist,  and  thrashed  him  with  hickory  switches  until  he 

South  at  this  period,  seeking  political  preferment,  were  a  few  who  soon  real- 
ized the  injustice  and  impracticabiHty  of  "Reconstruction"  as  formulated  by 
the  heartless  conspiracy  at  Washington.  Abandoning  the  politics  which  fa- 
vored negro  supremacy,  they  identified  themselves  with  the  material  develop- 
ment of  the  South.  Captain  Elliott,  who  came  to  my  native  village  in  com- 
mand of  the  negro  garrison,  made  his  home  there  and  died  after  many  years, 
loved  and  respected  by  all.  Lieutenant-Colonel  H.  C.  Warmoth,  of  General 
McClernand's  staff,  who  became  Governor  of  Louisiana,  is  now  one  of  the 
largest  planters  in  that  state  and  closely  identified  with  its  development. 

322 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

begged  for  mercy.  They  then  told  him  that  if  he  was  in 
the  county  at  simset  of  the  next  day  he  would  never  get 
beyond  its  limits  alive.  They  didn't  have  to  kill  him,  but 
they  would  have  done  it  had  he  not  left,  never  to  be  heard 
of  again.  The  leading  negroes  were  called  to  the  doors  of 
their  cabins  at  dead  of  night  by  mounted  and  masked 
men  who  in  sepulchral  tones  told  them  that  the  ghosts  of 
the  dead  from  the  battle-fields  were  wandering  back  to  warn 
them  to  beware  of  strangers  and  stay  at  home  on  election 
days.  In  extreme  cases,  in  which  danger  of  recognition 
involved  arrest  and  pimishment  (for  Congress  was  quick 
to  enact  rigid  laws  against  the  Klan),  notice  was  sent  to  the 
Klan  of  an  adjoining  county,  and  these  rode  over  at  night 
to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  their  brothers,  who  could  estab- 
lish thus  readily  the  essential  alibi.  Terrifying  the  negro 
until  he  withdrew  from  politics  was  not  the  work  of  a  month 
or  of  a  year,  but  it  went  on  with  grim  determination  and 
ultimate  success.  With  the  progress  of  the  movement  the 
white  interlopers  read  the  writing  on  the  wall,  fled  the 
country,  and  the  native  whites  of  the  South  came  again  into 
their  own. 

This  organization  originated  in  1866  in  or  near  Pulaski, 
in  Giles  County,  Tennessee.  Thence  it  spread,  swift  as  a 
prairie-fire,  over  the  entire  South.  The  head  man,  whose 
power  was  absolute  and  whose  orders  had  to  be  obeyed 
without  regard  to  consequences,  was  known  as  the  Grand 
Wizard  of  the  Invisible  Empire.  Immediately  under  him 
were  his  ten  Genii.  There  was  a  Grand  Dragon  of  the 
Realm  and  his  eight  Hydras,  and  other  mysterious  sub- 
divisions of  authority.  They  had  printed  and  scattered 
over  the  country  at  night  placards  setting  forth  the  object 
of  the  Klan:   "To  protect  the  weak,  the  innocent,  and  the 

323 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

defenseless  from  the  indignities,  wrongs,  and  outrages  of  the 
lawless,  the  violent,  and  the  brutal;  to  aid  the  oppressed, 
to  relieve  suffering,  and  especially  to  help  the  widows  and 
orphans  of  Confederate  soldiers." 

A  writer  in  the  American  Encyclopedia  said:  "Its  decrees 
were  far  more  potent  and  its  power  more  dreaded  than  that 
of  the  visible  commonwealth,  which  it  either  dominated  or 
terrorized."  It  is  estimated  that  its  membership  numbered 
at  one  period  half  a  million.  By  1869  its  mission  of  scaring 
the  negro  away  from  the  influence  of  and  political  associa- 
tion with  the  adventurers  and  carpet-baggers  was  accom- 
plished, and  it  was  then  disbanded  and  dispersed  as  quietly 
and  as  mysteriously  as  it  had  come. 

Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  malice  and  brutality 
which  had  free  license  in  this  unhappy  period  than  the 
riveting  of  irons  upon  the  ankles  of  Jefferson  Davis,  ex- 
President  of  the  Confederate  States.  A  man  of  noble 
character,  his  whole  life  as  soldier  and  statesmen  above  re- 
proach, of  delicate  physique  and  in  ill  health,  securely 
locked  in  a  double  casemate  in  Fortress  Monroe,  and  so 
strongly  guarded  that  escape  (had  he  contemplated  it)  was 
hopeless,  was  thrown  to  the  floor  and  held  forcibly  by  sol- 
diers under  the  orders  of  Charles  A.  Dana  and  Nelson  A. 
Miles,  while  iron  anklets  chained  together  were  riveted  by 
blacksmiths  on  his  legs.  Read  Mr.  Dana's  description  of 
the  prison  written  to  Secretary  Stanton: 

The  arrangements  for  the  security  of  the  prisoners  seem  to  me  as 
complete  as  could  be  desired.  Each  one  occupies  the  inner  room  of  a 
casemate;  the  window  is  heavily  barred.  A  sentry  stands  within  before 
each  of  the  doors  leading  into  the  outer  room.  Two  other  sentries  stand 
outside  of  these  doors.  An  officer  is  also  constantly  on  duty  in  the  outer 
room,  whose  duty  is  to  see  the  prisoners  every  fifteen  minutes.  The 
outer  door  of  all  is  locked  on  the  outside,  and  the  key  is  kept  exclusively 

324 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

by  the  general  officer  of  the  guard.  Two  sentries  are  also  stationed  with- 
out that  door,  and  a  strong  line  of  sentries  cuts  off  all  access  to  the  vicinity 
of  the  casemates.  Another  Une  is  stationed  on  the  parapet  overhead, 
and  a  third  line  is  posted  across  the  moat  on  the  counterscarps  opposite 
the  place  of  confinement.  The  casemates  on  each  side  and  between  those 
occupied  by  the  prisoners  (Jefferson  Davis  and  Clement  C.  Clay)  are  used 
as  guard-rooms,  and  soldiers  are  always  there.  A  lamp  is  constantly 
kept  burning  in  each  of  the  rooms.  .  .  .  Before  leaving  Fortress  Monroe 
on  May  2  2d  I  made  out  for  General  Miles  the  order.  ..."  Brevet  Major- 
General  Miles  is  hereby  authorized  and  directed  to  place  manacles  and 
fetters  upon  the  hands  and  feet  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  Clement  C.  Clay, 
Jr.,  whenever  he  may  think  it  advisable  in  order  to  render  their  imprison- 
ment more  secure.    By  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War. 

C.  A.  Dana, 
Assistant  Secretary  of  War." 

This  order  was  General  Miles's  authority  for  placing  fetters  on  Davis 
a  day  or  two  later,  when  he  found  it  necessary  to  change  the  inner  doors 
of  the  casemate,  which  were  light  wooden  ones  without  locks.  While 
these  doors  were  being  changed  for  grated  ones  anklets  were  placed  on 
Davis.  They  did  not  prevent  his  walking,  but  did  prevent  any  attempt 
to  jump  past  the  guard,  and  they  also  prevented  him  from  running.  As 
soon  as  the  doors  were  changed  (it  required  three  days,  I  think)  the 
anklets  were  removed. 

This  eqmvocation  does  little  credit  to  the  head  or  heart 
of  the  scholarly  Assistant  Secretary  of  War.  His  descrip- 
tion above  given  shows  that  changing  a  wooden  door  for 
a  grated  door  was  no  excuse  for  this  brutal  act.  There  were 
still  two  grated  doors  heavily  barred  between  the  prisoner 
and  the  prison -yard;  then  three  lines  of  sentinels,  and, 
above  all,  the  inside  of  a  great  fortress  surrounded  by  a 
wide,  deep  moat,  and  soldiers  and  guards  everywhere. 

Nor  were  the  irons  removed  because  the  new  grated  doors 
were  in  place.  They  were  removed  on  the  protest  of  Dr. 
Craven,  the  United  States  Army  Surgeon  called  to  attend 
the  sick  prisoner.  "You  believe  it,  then,  a  medical  neces- 
sity?" asked  General  Miles.  "I  do,  most  earnestly,"  re- 
plied the  doctor;  and  the  manacles  were  then  removed. 

325 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

No  less  a  personage  than  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
Hugh  McCulloch,  visited  Mr.  Davis  at  Fortress  Monroe, 
and  he  publicly  stated  in  his  Men  and  Measures  of  Half  a 
Century  that  he  had  for  a  time  been  barbarously  treated. 
Despite  the  high  position  of  the  one  and  the  record  of  gal- 
lantry as  a  soldier  of  the  other  Charles  A.  Dana  and  Nelson 
A.  Miles  cannot  escape  the  judgment  of  posterity  that  at 
least  on  this  occasion  they  shrank  from  the  dimensions  of 
human  beings. 


XXII 

A  Medical  student  in  1867 — three  years  in  Arkansas—^ 

STEAMBOATING    AND    CONTRACTING 

The  medical  department  of  the  university  I  attended 
was  in  1867  one  of  the  oldest  and  deservedly  best  known 
of  the  medical  colleges  in  the  United  States.  The  course  of 
study  and  the  standard  of  requirements  then  prevailing  at 
this  school  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  medical  education 
in  the  United  States  at  that  period.  There  was  no  prelimi- 
nary or  entrance  examination.  Any  white  male  who  could 
read  and  write  and  who  had  mastered  the  rudiments  of 
English  was  eligible.  Neither  Latin  nor  Greek  was  essen- 
tial. 

The  requirements  for  graduation  were  a  satisfactory  ex- 
amination at  the  end  of  two  college  terms  of  seven  months 
each.  The  division  of  subjects  was:  anatomy,  physiology, 
surgery,  medicine,  obstetrics,  chemistry,  and  materia  med- 
ica.  Anatomy  was  thoroughly  taught,  and  the  didactic 
course  was  supplemented  by  dissecting-room  work  of  a  high 
class.  While  material  was  not  over-abundant,  there  not 
then  being  the  same  liberal  construction  of  the  law  relating 
to  the  disposition  of  the  unclaimed  dead  which  now  prevails, 
the  activity  of  our  dissecting-room  janitor  kept  us  in  a 
sufficient  quantity  of  cadavers.  How  he  got  them  we  did 
not  know,  and  it  probably  was  just  as  well  that  no  inquiry 
was  instituted.     His  name  was  Peter.     Students  inclined 

327 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  disrespect  spoke  of  him  as  "old  Pete,"  but  those  who 
had  been  brought  up  under  the  influence  of  the  Westminster 
Confession  baptized  him  "St.  Peter,"  the  rock  upon  which 
our  anatomical  church  was  founded,  and  to  whom  it  was  said 
the  keys  of  Cave  Hill  Cemetery  had  been  given.  In  physi- 
ology there  were  no  laboratory  exercises ;  no  practical  demon- 
strations of  the  living  structures  and  of  the  functions  of  the 
normal  organs. 

The  teaching  of  surgery  and  medicine  was  almost  wholly 
didactic.  When  an  operative  clinic  was  given  the  students 
witnessed  it  at  such  distance  from  the  subject  and  with  so 
many  interruptions  of  vision  that  it  was  impossible  to  fol- 
low closely  the  details  of  technique,  without  which  the  lesson 
of  a  demonstration  is  valueless.  Not  once  in  my  two  college 
years  did  I  enter  the  ward  of  a  hospital  or  receive  instruc- 
tion by  the  bedside  of  a  patient. 

This  is  not  in  the  least  a  reflection  upon  our  teachers,  but 
upon  the  system  then  in  vogue.  The  greatest  names  in 
medicine  in  our  country  had  been  or  then  were  associated 
with  this  institution.  In  the  lectures  on  medicine  we  were 
told  that  the  cause  of  malarial  and  yellow  fever  was  a  miasm 
emanating  from  decaying  vegetable  matter  subjected  to  a 
temperature  of  from  eighty  to  ninety  degrees  Fahrenheit 
for  about  thirty  days,  and  that  those  who  slept  upon  the 
ground  floors  of  buildings  suffered  most,  while  those  who 
occupied  the  second,  third,  and  higher  floors  escaped  the 
baneful  effects  in  the  direct  ratio  of  their  elevation.  The 
same  comparison  was  used  in  the  discourse  upon  yellow 
fever,  citing  the  fact  that  in  the  Louisville  epidemic  few,  if 
any,  persons  sleeping  upon  the  upper  floors  of  houses  were 
affected.  Knowing  as  we  do  now  that  the  mosquito  is  not 
prone  to  fly  high,  that  he  infests  the  lower  floors  of  houses, 

328 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

seldom  reaching  the  third  or  fourth  floor,  we  can  under- 
stand readily  the  error  in  etiology  on  the  part  of  our  pro- 
fessor of  medicine.  The  teaching  of  obstetrics  was  entirely 
didactic.  In  my  two  terms  of  study  I  examined  only  one 
gynecological  case,  while  in  chemistry  and  materia  medica 
the  instruction  was  in  the  lecture-room  to  the  whole  class 
instead  of  with  working  sections  in  the  laboratory,  and 
there  was  no  course  of  study  in  microscopy  or  urinary 
analysis. 

I  was  graduated  in  the  spring  of  1869.  I  had  been  look- 
ing forward  to  the  day  when  I  should  receive  my  diploma 
and  start  out  on  my  career  as  a  practising  physician  and 
surgeon;  but  I  can  never  forget  the  sinking  feeling  that 
came  over  me  when  I  unfolded  this  sacred  document  in  the 
privacy  of  my  own  room  and  realized  how  little  I  knew  and 
how  incompetent  I  was  to  undertake  the  care  of  those  in 
the  distress  of  sickness  or  accident.  However,  like  Macbeth, 
who  was  so  far  advanced  in  blood  that  it  was  as  easy  to 
go  ahead  as  to  recede,  I  felt  I  might  just  as  well  do  as  my 
predecessors  had  done  and  let  the  world  take  its  chances. 

The  possessor  of  a  pair  of  doctor's  saddle-bags,  which 
held  two  rows  of  medicine-bottles,  diminutive  apothecary 
scales  for  weighing  dosage,  two  forceps  for  extracting  teeth, 
and  a  small  minor  surgical  operating  set  of  instruments,  and 
last,  but  not  least,  a  tin  sign,  I  rented  an  office  in  my  home 
town  of  Guntersville,  Alabama,  and  after  dark  one  night  in 
March,  1869,  I  tacked  my  sign  to  "the  outer  wall."  ^  It 
was  the  irony  of  fate  that  my  first  call  was  obstetrical.  If 
there  was  anything  in  the  world  I  didn't  want  it  was  this 
kind  of  a  case;   but  I  didn't  have  the  courage  to  back  out, 

1  The  rest  of  this  quotation  from  "  Macbeth "  could  not  apply  to  my 
practice.     "The  cry  is  still,  They  come!" 

22  329 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

I  thanked  God  it  was  a  normal  labor,  for  I  had  nothing  to 
do  but  tie  and  cut  the  umbilical  cord  and  tell  the  mother  it 
was  a  boy.  A  strapping  young  farmer  with  lobar  pneu- 
monia came  next,  and  he  survived.  For  my  first  surgical 
operation  I  rode  twenty-three  miles  and  back  the  same  day. 
My  preceptor,  an  ex-army  surgeon,  gave  the  chloroform, 
and  looked  on  as  I  dissected  out  some  sort  of  tumor  from 
the  shoulder-blade  of  an  elderly  lady,  whose  resistance  en- 
abled us  to  register  it  as  successful. 

As  we  were  starting  home  the  appreciative  and  grateful 
husband  told  us  he  didn't  have  any  money,  but,  pointing 
to  his  apple  orchard,  then  in  bloom,  said  he  had  a  "still," 
and  would  send  us  a  barrel  of  apple-brandy  in  the  fall.  He 
kept  his  word,  and  I  realized  twenty  dollars  for  my  share. 

Then  came  my  Waterloo  in  a  case  of  diabetes  mellitus 
which  progressed  rapidly  to  a  fatal  termination.  I  cannot 
describe  my  feelings  nor  measure  the  depth  of  my  depres- 
sion and  despair  as  I  watched  this  patient  die.  I  was  over- 
whelmed with  the  conviction  that  I  was  unfit  to  take  the 
grave  responsibility  of  the  life  and  health  and  happiness  of 
those  who  might  be  willing  to  place  themselves  under  my 
care.  I  needed  a  clinical  and  laboratory  training  under 
teachers  of  experience,  and  I  determined  to  give  up  my 
practice  until  I  could  secure  this  training.  That  night,  two 
months  after  I  had  tacked  it  up,  I  took  my  sign  down  and 
put  it  in  my  trunk,  where  it  reposed  for  several  years. 

Three  of  these  years  were  spent  in  Arkansas,  whither  I 
had  gone  to  earn  the  money  needed  to  go  to  New  York  or 
Europe  for  postgraduate  study.  Having  learned  that  a 
railroad  contractor  with  whom  I  was  acquainted  was  look- 
ing for  a  superintendent  of  one  of  his  enterprises  in  Arkansas, 
I  applied  for  the  position,  and  was  employed  at  a  salary  of 

330 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

seventy-five  dollars  a  month,  with  the  understanding  that 
either  of  us  could  cancel  the  engagement  at  the  expira- 
tion of  three  months.  My  destination  was  the  head  of 
navigation  on  Little  Red  River,  a  tributary  of  White  River. 
At  Memphis  I  boarded  a  palatial  side-wheel  steamboat  en- 
gaged in  this  trade.  The  cuisine  was  excellent,  the  rooms 
and  beds  were  clean  and  comfortable.  There  could  not 
have  been  a  more  delightful  mode  of  travel  than  by  the 
steamboats  which  plied  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries 
at  that  period. 

When  we  turned  from  the  Mississippi  into  the  mouth  of 
White  River  there  was  no  sign  of  land.  What  the  river- 
men  call  the  "June  rise"  was  on.  A  winding  sheet  of  water, 
margined  by  the  tree-tops  of  the  impenetrable  forests  on 
either  side,  was  the  channel,  and  up  this  for  nearly  fifty 
miles  we  steamed  before  the  first  land  was  seen.  Above 
this  point  the  water  was  "in  banks,"  and  the  crookedness  of 
this  stream  was  noticeable.  In  one  of  these  countless  bends 
or  loops  the  cutting  of  a  canal  seventy-five  feet  long  would 
shorten  navigation  by  five  miles. 

In  carrying  on  our  contract  we  had  in  use  a  stanch  stern- 
wheel  steamboat  and  a  number  of  barges  for  towing  stone 
from  the  quarries  to  De  Vall's  Bluff,  where  the  railroad 
bridge  was  being  built.  On  these  frequent  trips  I  spent 
practically  all  of  my  time  in  the  pilot-house,  learning  to 
steer  the  boat  and  making  sketches  of  the  river  in  its 
various  windings,  studying  the  location  of  snags,  "sawyers," 
and  other  hindrances  to  navigation,  as  well  as  noting  the 
course  of  the  currents  in  different  parts  of  the  stream.  In 
three  months  I  had  learned  how  to  handle  the  boat,  even 
with  the  heavy  tow  descending  the  White  River,  which, 
by  reason  of  its  narrow  and  tortuous  course,  required  more 

331 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

than  ordinary  care  in  handling  a  boat  with  heavy  barges 
lashed  to  its  side  and  in  front,  around  these  short  bends, 
many  of  which  were  compHcated  with  the  presence  of  snags 
or  trunks  of  trees  which  had  fallen  in  from  the  banks  and 
were  partly  submerged.  Later  on  my  acquaintance  with 
the  river  and  practical  knowledge  in  handling  a  steamboat 
was  of  considerable  value,  as  I  became  the  master  of  this 
boat  and  barges  and  stood  my  watch  regularly  as  a  pilot, 
saving  a  monthly  expenditure  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars,  the  salary  then  in  vogue. 

We  discovered  and  opened  a  magnificent  sandstone 
quarry  on  Upper  White,  in  Independence  County,  about 
fifteen  miles  above  Jacksonport  by  land  and  twice  this  dis- 
tance by  the  winding  river.  This  stone  formation  lies  in 
strata  varying  from  one  foot  to  three  feet  in  thickness,  and 
so  true  (or  level)  that  not  infrequently  the  block  could  be 
squared  to  one  of  its  undressed  and  untouched  surfaces. 
Much  of  it  had,  running  in  a  general  direction  with  the 
seams,  beautiful  wavy  tracings  of  red  and  yellow  and  blue, 
which  produced  a  striking  effect  on  the  finished  product. 
One  block  I  quarried  and  transported  the  one  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  by  barge  to  Augusta,  which  was  used  in  my 
jail  contract  for  the  lintel  over  the  main  doorway  of  en- 
trance, was  eighteen  inches  wide,  two  feet  high,  and  ten 
feet  in  length.  As  it  was  for  a  jail  door,  I  was  in  doubt  for 
a  while  whether  to  inscribe  on  it  the  line  from  Dante,  ' '  Who 
enters  here  leaves  hope  behind,"  or  the  name  of  the  builder 
and  date.  But  vanitas  vanitatum ! — when  I  left  Arkansas 
those  who  went  to  jail  and  could  read  saw  over  that  door 
in  bold  letters,   "Wyeth— 1872." 

This  busy  life  was  enjoyable,  and  I  found  no  little  in- 
terest in  the  association  with  my  employees,  who  were  of 

332 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

several  nationalities  and  at  least  two  colors.  For  six  days 
of  each  week  I  had  breakfast  by  lamplight  in  order  to  have 
every  one  up  and  ready  for  work  by  the  time  it  was  Hght 
enough  to  see.  We  took  an  hour  from  twelve  to  one  for 
dinner  and  resting,  and  then  kept  going  until  dark.  I 
worked  (manual  labor)  by  the  side  of  my  men,  and  learned 
not  only  to  quarry  and  cut  stone,  but  took  a  ttun  nearly 
every  day  at  the  forge,  and  became  sufficiently  expert  in 
tempering  the  steel  "chisels  and  points."  Barney,  my  good- 
natured  Irish  blacksmith,  used  to  give  me  the  directions, 
"From  a  cherry-red  to  a  sk^^-blue,  and  then  chill  it,"  which, 
being  interpreted  means  that  the  cutting-edge  of  the  steel 
implement  after  it  is  properly  shaped  on  the  anvil  should  be 
heated,  not  to  a  white-heat,  but  to  a  bright  red,  like  a  half- 
ripe  cherry,  then  held  just  touching  the  cooling  water  until 
it  assumes  a  sky-blue  shade;  and  at  that  moment  immersed 
so  it  would  hold  that  color.  These  hardy,  fine  fellows  never 
gave  me  any  trouble  or  concern,  excepting  when  on  rare 
occasions  "inspiring  bold  John  Barleycorn"  did  for  them 
what  it  did  for  Tam  o'  Shanter.  I  showed  them  every  kind- 
ly consideration,  whether  sick  or  well,  but  very  occasion- 
ally when  alcoholism  got  the  best  of  any  I  was  compelled 
to  be  firm,  or  maybe  severe. 

One  Simday  a  wildly  drunken  stone-cutter  tried  to  stab 
a  fellow- workman,  who  ran  to  me  for  help.  His  pursuer 
would  not  listen  to  reason,  but  turned  on  me.  As  he  raised 
his  hand  to  stab  me  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  knock  him 
senseless  with  a  piece  of  flooring-plank  which  lay  convenient 
to  hand. 

As  good-luck  would  have  it,  we  were  isolated  from  drink, 
for  it  was  fifteen  miles  to  Jacksonport,  the  nearest  saloon 
town,  and  during  our  busiest  period  in  this  quarry  the  river 

333 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

was  so  low  that  the  steamboats  were  not  running.  Usually 
I  walked  to  town  on  Saturday  afternoon,  much  of  the  dis- 
tance along  a  trail  through  dense  cane-brake,  returning  with 
the  weekly  mail  for  all  hands  and  reaching  camp  by  dinner- 
time of  Sunday.  The  "Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine"  was 
populous  in  comparison  with  this  path  that  I  tracked  so 
often  on  foot,  with  a  wall  of  cane  on  either  side  so  thick 
one  could  not  see  a  dozen  yards  to  right  or  left.  There  was 
just  one  lone  settler's  cabin  on  the  fifteen-mile  trip. 

On  one  of  these  Saturday-afternoon  trips  to  the  post- 
office  at  Jacksonport  I  concluded  to  go  by  the  river  route, 
the  distance  being  fully  twice  as  great  on  account  of  the 
crooked  stream.  As  the  water  was  too  low  for  the  steam- 
boats, I  started  alone  about  noon  in  a  small  skiff,  and  paddled 
steadily,  hoping  to  reach  town  by  supper-time.  Night  came 
on,  however,  when  I  was  some  ten  miles  from  my  destination, 
and,  seeing  a  light  on  the  shore,  I  landed,  to  find  myself  in 
the  camp  of  some  loggers,  and  a  very  tough-looking  lot  of 
fellows  they  were.  Had  I  suspected  who  they  were  before 
I  reached  the  shore  I  would  have  kept  well  out  in  the 
stream  and  gone  on  supperless  without  attracting  their 
attention,  for  the  men  who  engaged  in  lumbering  in  those 
lonely  outfits  in  the  vast  cypress-brakes  of  the  White  River 
country  right  after  the  war  belonged  very  frequently  to 
that  reckless  and  roving  class  who  had  civil  or  military 
histories  that  were  better  unwritten. 

Nothing  was  left,  however,  but  to  bluff  it  through;  so 
I  tied  my  boat  and  walked  up  to  the  crowd  near  the  fire, 
where  they  were  just  commencing  supper,  greeted  all  hands 
in  hail-fellow-well-met  fashion,  and  made  myself  at  home. 

They  gave  me  generously  of  the  good,  substantial  food  they 
had — coffee  and  corn-bread  and  fish  fried  in  bacon  grease — 

334 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

for,  as  at  my  camp  twenty  miles  farther  up  the  stream,  this 
beautiful  Upper  White  River  provided  their  main  article 
of  diet.  When  I  got  ready  to  leave,  the  head  man,  who 
would  not  accept  the  proffer  of  payment,  told  me  that  if  I 
cared  to  stay  all  night  they  could  furnish  me  with  a  blanket. 
I  thanked  him,  said  "Good-by,"  got  in  my  boat,  and  soon 
drifted  out  of  sight  into  the  black  night  and  the  silence. 
With  the  exception  of  the  occasional  splash  of  some  fish 
leaping  out  of  the  water  either  in  play  or  more  probably 
in  the  panic  of  trying  to  keep  from  being  eaten  by  some 
larger  fellow,  or  the  lonely  screech  of  an  owl,  the  deep,  im- 
pressive stillness  of  the  river  and  the  wilderness  was  un- 
broken. As  this  section  of  Upper  White  was  in  my  run  as 
pilot  of  the  Converse,  when  the  water  was  "in  stage, "^  not- 
withstanding the  darkness,  I  knew  it  like  a  book.  I  had 
made  drawings  of  every  bend  and  bar  and  snag,  marked 
each  place  of  danger,  even  for  night  work,  by  the  breaks 
or  inequalities  of  the  timber-lines  on  either  bank;  for  even 
in  the  darkest  nights  the  tree-top  lines  stand  out  a  black, 
well-defined  silhouette  against  the  lighter  background  of 
the  sky.  I  felt  very  much  at  home,  for  this  river  was  to 
me  as  a  friend,  and  the  solitude  was  not  unwelcome.  That 
exquisite  line  of  Byron  came  to  my  mind  then,  as  many  a 
time  before  and  since — 

Nor  deem  it  solitude  to  be  alone. 

I  knew  there  were  seven  miles  of  slow  water  with  a  current 
of  about  two  miles  an  hour  to  the  head  of  Music  Shoals, 
three  miles  above  Jacksonport,  and  that  when  I  reached  the 
chutes  I  would  have  all  the  excitement  and  exhilaration 
any  one  coiild  wish  for  in  guiding  my  small  craft  over  those 

^  Deep  enough  to  carry  the  boat  over  the  shoals, 

335 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

bars  and  svv^irls  and  falls;  so  I  laid  my  oar  across  the  skiff, 
nestled  down  comfortably,  and  floated  on  dreamily  with  the 
tide.  Had  I  been  sleepy  I  would  not  have  yielded  to  the 
desire,  for  I  knew  full  well  if  I  should  happen  to  be  asleep 
when  my  skiff  shot  into  the  rapids  I  would  get  a  ducking 
or  a  drowning,  either  of  which  would  be  objectionable.  I 
could  keep  awake,  but  was  unable  to  throw  my  memory 
cells  out  of  commission,  and,  naturally,  my  thoughts  were  of 
the  river  upon  which  I  was  being  borne  and  of  this  particu- 
lar "reach."  ^  And  then  there  flashed  into  my  mind  a 
ghastly  picture  registered  about  a  year  previous,  when, 
bowling  along  up-stream  on  my  swift  steamboat  the  Con- 
verse, as  we  swept  round  this  bend  I  saw  from  the  pilot- 
house, perched  on  some  object  floating  on  the  surface,  one 
of  those  huge,  red-beaked,  bare-necked,  and  repulsive  buz- 
zards so  common  in  this  part  of  the  South.  It  was  evident- 
ly carrion  upon  which  he  was  feasting,  and  he  was  so  hungry 
and  intent  on  gorging  himself  that  he  only  flapped  his  great 
wings  and  flew  away  when  the  prow  of  our  boat  was  nearly 
on  him.  To  my  horror,  as  I  leaned  over  the  side  of  the  pilot- 
house above  the  hurricane-deck  to  see  what  kind  of  dead 
material  it  was,  I  recognized  the  swollen  body  of  a  man. 

Just  as  this  lugubrious  picture  was  floating — as  floated 
the  dead  man — through  my  mind,  I  became  conscious  that 
another  craft  was  in  the  river;  for  coming  behind  me  I 
distinctly  heard  the  rhythmical  stroke  of  a  paddle,  such  as 
is  used  to  propel  the  light  shells  or  dugouts  from  which 
the  expert  lumbermen  in  the  overflow  fell  with  axes  the 
giant  cypress-trees,  taking  advantage  of  the  high  water  to 

1  Rivermen  use  many  strange  expressions.  A  straight  piece  of  river  is 
called  a  "stretch."  A  "reach"  may  be  slightly  curved.  A  "bend"  is  a  bit 
of  river  sweeping  more  or  less  abruptly  around  a  "point"  or  tongue  of  land, 
etc.,  etc, 

33^ 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

get  above  the  trumpet-like  and  faulty  expansion  of  these 
queer  trees,  which  extends  from  ten  to  fifteen  feet  above  the 
ground.^  I  suppose  the  thought  of  the  dead  man  had  set 
me  to  speculating  on  the  possibility  of  danger,  and  now  I 
began  to  wonder  what  any  one  else  but  myself  could  be 
doing  on  this  lonely  stretch  of  river  at  this  hour  of  the  night. 
Then,  as  I  recognized  a  double  stroke  with  paddles  and  ap- 
preciated the  fact  that  whatever  it  was  it  was  coming  rapidly, 
I  thought  at  once  of  the  hard  faces  I  had  seen  around  the 
loggers'  camp-fire,  and  that  possibly  a  brace  of  them  had 
judged  that  a  man  who  sported  a  gold  watch  and  chain  was 
really  worth  while.  In  any  event,  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  I  didn't  want  company  for  any  part  of  the  remainder 
of  my  journey  that  night,  so  I  picked  up  my  oar  and  quietly 
guided  my  boat  close  in  to  shore,  where,  under  the  black 
shadow  of  a  dense  willow-tree  which  leaned  over  the  river, 
I  was  safely  out  of  the  possibility  of  being  seen.  Without 
a  sound  save  the  almost  noiseless  stroke  of  the  paddles  as 
they  glided  swiftly  by,  the  invisible  craft  went  on,  I  gave 
them  half  an  hour  of  leeway,  and  then  drifted  on  with  the 
current.  It  was  midnight  when  my  skiff  shot  into  the  first 
or  upper  rapid  of  Music  Shoals,  through  which,  at  from  six 
to  eight  miles  an  hour  and  with  equal  rapidity  through  the 
other  two,  my  light  craft  glided  into  the  still  waters  at  the 
Jacksonport  wharf. 

In  these  years  immediately  following  the  Civil  War  not 
only  was  the  river  full  of  delicious  fish — bass,  buffalo-perch, 
blue  catfish,  and  other  eatable   varieties — but   the   woods 

1  These  shells,  usually  made  from  the  ash-tree,  vary  in  length  from  twelve 
to  twenty  feet.  The  smaller  craft  can  bear  only  one  man,  and  he  must  sit 
or  kneel,  or,  if  very  expert,  stand  in  the  center.  Some  of  these  lumbermen  are 
so  skilful  that  they  stand  erect  in  their  canoes,  which  are  not  anchored  or 
tied,  and  fell  these  giant  trees. 

337 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

abounded  in  all  sorts  of  wild  birds  and  animals,  which  had 
increased  greatly  during  the  four  years  they  were  free  from 
being  hunted  while  the  miCn  were  off  in  the  army.  I  have 
never  heard  a  weirder  sound  than  the  howl  of  a  pack  of 
wolves — presumably  hungry — when  they  would  venture  at 
night  near  our  camp.  Deer  were  so  plentiful  that  any  ex- 
cursion into  the  brush  of  the  uplands  or  second  bottoms 
would  start  up  a  herd  of  from  six  to  a  dozen.  I  killed  with 
my  Colt  army  pistol  on  one  occasion  a  fine  buck  as  he  ran 
right  through  our  camp.  They  seemed  to  avoid  the  low- 
lands or  cane-brakes,  and  for  good  reason:  the  cane  grew 
so  thick  they  could  not  jump  or  run  through  it. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  suggestive  of 
helplessness  and  loneliness  than  one  of  these  vast  and  seem- 
ingly endless  stretches  of  cane,  with  now  and  then  an  open 
slash  full  of  tall  and  stately  cypress-trees,  with  their  thou- 
sands of  "knees,"  or  dwarfed,  stump-like  roots,  sticking  up 
in  the  air  from  two  to  four  feet  high.  These  cypress- 
knees  were  to  me  always  suggestive  of  the  tombstones  in 
a  neglected  graveyard. 

Near  the  mouth  of  Little  Red  River  an  accident  to  the 
machinery  compelled  me  to  tie  the  Converse  to  the  bank  for 
an  hour  or  two,  until  the  engineer  could  repair  the  break. 
For  at  least  ten  miles  on  either  side  stretched  the  practical- 
ly impenetrable  wilderness  of  cane.  Just  where  we  hap- 
pened to  land  a  small  ravine,  the  outlet  to  a  cypress-swamp, 
opened  into  White  River.  As  it  was  the  dry  season,  this 
ravine  offered  an  open  trail  to  the  interior;  so,  taking  my 
ever-ready  six-shooter,  I  started  out  alone  on  a  tour  of  ex- 
ploration. After  going  about  a  mile,  with  the  cane  growing 
so  dense  to  the  very  edge  of  the  ravine  on  either  side  that 
a  man  could  not  get  through  it  at  any  point  without  worni- 

338 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

ing  his  way  flat  on  the  ground,  it  opened  abruptly  into  a  vast 
and  comparatively  open  forest  of  giant  cypress- trees.  Many 
of  these  were  over  a  hundred  feet  high,  with  not  a  limb  to 
mar  the  beauty  and  symmetry  of  their  trunks  until  near  the 
very  top,  where  the  branches  spread  out  not  unlike  an  open 
parasol.  A  number  of  eagles'  nests  were  built  in  their  tops, 
and  the  shrill  screams  of  these  birds  and  the  occasional 
flute-like  notes  of  a  heron  perched  on  one  of  the  "knees" 
were  the  only  sounds.  Coming  to  a  low  place  where  the 
ground  was  not  yet  thoroughly  dried,  I  was  attracted  by  a 
print  which  had  the  toe-marks  of  a  human  foot.  As  the 
heel  was  missing,  I  realized  at  once  that  it  was  the  new- 
made  track  of  a  big  black  bear — and  then  it  suddenly  oc- 
curred to  me  that  the  engineer  had  had  time  to  repair  his 
machinery  and  I  had  better  hurry  back  to  the  boat.  Not 
far  from  this  neighborhood  I  passed  in  the  river  an  old  native 
hunter  who  had  in  his  dugout  three  bears  he  had  killed 
that  morning. 

This  overflow  cane-brake  land  was  considered  worthless 
when  I  lived  in  Arkansas  (1869-18 7 2),  and  on  one  occasion 
at  a  public  sale  for  taxes  at  Augusta  I  bought  on  a  venture 
some  eight  thousand  acres  in  one  body,  the  price  ranging 
from  twelve  to  fifteen  cents  an  acre.  The  land  was  the 
property  of  ex-President  Jefferson  Davis  and  a  Mr.  Coxe, 
who,  I  believe,  was  his  brother-in-law.  The  law  specified 
that  if  not  redeemed  within  two  years  the  sheriff  could 
make  a  perfect  title  to  the  buyer  for  taxes.  Three  days 
before  the  expiration  of  the  time  the  owners  redeemed  their 
lands  by  paying  double  the  amount  I  had  paid  for  the 
property.  I  was  told  in  1908,  while  on  a  brief  visit  to 
Arkansas,  that  these  lands  had  been  sold  in  recent  years  at 
twenty-five  dollars  an  acre.     When  cane  can  be  used  for 

339 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

making  paper  or  for  any  commercial  purpose  the  overflow 
lands  of  the  South  will  be  of  great  value. 

From  my  perch  up  in  the  pilot-house  of  my  steamboat 
I  have  witnessed  more  than  once  the  thrilling  panorama 
of  a  burning  cane-brake.  After  a  prolonged  drought,  when 
the  leaves  wither  and  are  as  dry  as  paper,  cane  will  burn 
almost  as  fiercely  as  the  grass  on  the  Western  prairies, 
though  not  nearly  so  rapidly.  The  roar  of  the  blaze  and 
the  million  explosions  of  the  joints  is  the  best  imitation  of 
the  rifle-fire  in  a  great  battle  I  have  ever  heard.  It  is  simply 
deafening.  This  variety  of  cane  has  from  six  to  twenty 
cavities  or  joints,  each  of  which  is  a  short,  closed  cylinder 
containing  a  certain  quantity  of  moisture.  As  this  becomes 
heated  it  expands  and  "blows  up  the  boiler,"  as  Jack,  my 
old,  faithful  engineer,  expressed  it. 

After  a  year  and  a  half  as  superintendent  I  became  asso- 
ciated with  my  employer  in  a  contract  to  erect  some  pub- 
lic buildings  for  Woodruff  County,  w^hich  undertaking  was 
carried  out  successfully  and  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  all 
concerned.  The  county  authorities  and  the  citizens  w^ere 
so  desirous  of  having  these  buildings  completed  at  the 
earliest  possible  date  that  they  offered  a  bonus  of  one 
thousand  dollars  if  they  were  turned  over  for  use  three 
months  ahead  of  the  date  specified  in  the  contract.  A  pro- 
longed low  stage  of  water  in  Upper  White  River  prevented 
our  bringing  out  the  last  barge-load  of  stone  essential  to 
the  completion  of  the  work.  After  a  long  and  anxious  wait 
a  telegram  informed  me  that  a  four-foot  rise  was  on  its  way 
down  from  the  Ozark  Mountains,  and  I  repaired  to  Jack- 
sonport,  an  important  shipping  -  point  thirty  miles  below 
the  location  of  our  quarry,  and  there  arranged  with  a  New 
Orleans   steamboat  to  bring  out  my  cargo.     It  was  ten 

340 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

o'clock  of  a  bitter  cold,  sleety  night  in  February  when  I 
started  on  horseback  overland  to  reach  the  quarry  by  day- 
light in  order  to  have  the  barge  loaded  and  ready  by  noon, 
when  the  Seminole  was  due  on  the  return  trip,  and  this  was 
my  last  and  only  chance. 

I  have  good  reason  to  remember  that  ride.  Next  to  the 
ride  around  Lebanon  with  Morgan  on  the  Christmas  raid 
in  the  blizzard  which  overwhelmed  us  in  1862,  this  was  the 
coldest  ride  I  have  had  and  the  longest  night  I  ever  experi- 
enced. It  was  very  dark,  alternately  sleeting  and  snowing. 
I  had  to  ferry  over  Black  River  where  it  empties  into  White. 
The  ferryman  lived  on  the  far  side;  and,  although  in  addi- 
tion to  hallooing  with  all  my  lung-power  I  fired  my  pistol 
several  times  at  his  cabin,  I  had  no  response,  and  I  was 
compelled  to  go  six  miles  farther  up  this  stream  to  where  I 
knew  the  man  who  kept  the  ferry  lived  on  my  side.  At 
daylight  I  was  at  my  destination,  and  was  ready  when  the 
friendly  steamboat  took  me  in  tow.  By  the  first  of  May, 
1872,  my  contract  was  finished,  and  I  received  the  extra  one 
thousand  dollars,  which,  with  other  earnings,  enabled  me  to 
resume  my  medical  studies  in  New  York  City. 

I  had  lost  three  years  out  of  my  professional  career, 
which  was  a  great  loss,  but  I  had  gained  in  business  experi- 
ence and  profited  by  the  larger  view  of  life  which  my  neces- 
sities had  forced  upon  me.  I  shall  never  cease  to  be  appre- 
ciative of  the  kindly  consideration  with  which  I  was  treated 
by  the  generous  people  of  Arkansas  of  every  political  shade 
and  in  every  condition  of  society.  The  wealthy  citizens  of 
Augusta  proffered  and  gave  me  financial  aid  in  the  prose- 
cution of  my  work,  and,  although  during  my  sojourn  the 
bitter  and  relentless  political  war  between  the  carpet- 
baggers and  the  native  whites  was  going  on,  the  partisans 

341 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  both  sides,  realizing  that  mine  was  in  the  natiire  of  a 
public  position,  vied  with  one  another  in  helping  me.  It  may 
be  that  my  training  as  a  pilot  had  suggested  that  the  best 
water  was  near  the  middle  of  the  river,  and  then  I  have 
never  forgotten  that  trite  quotation  from  the  ALneid,  ''medio 
tutissimus  ibis."  In  any  event,  I  sailed  safely  between 
Scylla  and  Charybdis  and  furled  my  canvas  in  the  harbor 
of  the  metropolis,  my  future  home.  This  is  all  so  far  back 
in  the  past  it  would  seem  that  it  ought  to  be  forgotten  or 
lost  in  the  rush  and  confusion  and  worry  of  this  modern  life 
that  knows  not  peace ;  but  the  fascination  of  the  river  holds 
me  to  this  day,  and  I  live  it  over  in  my  dreams,  awake  as 
well  as  asleep. 

On  my  way  to  the  East  I  traveled  three  days  by  steam- 
boat from  Little  Rock  on  the  Arkansas  River  up  this — at 
that  time — shallow  and  difficult  stream  to  Fort  Smith,  on 
the  border  of  the  Indian  Territory.  Wishing  to  get  a  glimpse 
of  this  region,  I  took  the  Overland  stage  to  Muscogee,  to 
which  station  the  Missouri,  Kansas  &  Texas  Railroad  had 
just  been  completed.  The  huge  Concord  stage  drawn  by 
four  horses  left  Fort  Smith  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing with  eleven  passengers  inside.  I  was  up  in  the  front 
with  the  driver.  We  were  soon  reeling  off  mile  after  mile 
through  the  prairies  of  the  Indian  Nation,  which  at  that 
season  of  the  year  were  richly  carpeted  with  the  flowers 
and  grass  of  the  early  summer.  We  changed  horses  every 
twelve  or  fifteen  miles,  taking  our  meals  at  eating-stations 
kept  by  "civihzed"  Indians,  and  about  dark  of  the  first 
day  crossed  a  wide  stream  where  it  emptied  into  the  Ar- 
kansas. The  darkness  of  the  night  made  no  difference  to 
our  Jehu,  for  he  and  the  horses  seemed  to  know  every  foot 
of  the  way. 

342 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

About  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  heard  the  rumble  of 
distant  thunder,  and  in  the  course  of  half  an  hour  or  so  we 
drove  into  a  terrific  wind  and  rain  storm  accompanied  by 
thunder  and  lightning  in  regular  wild  Western  fashion.  The 
horses  could  not  face  it,  and  bolted  from  the  trail,  turning 
so  suddenly  that  only  the  skill  of  the  driver  prevented  the 
coach  from  being  upset.  The  vivid  Hghtning  and  the  crash- 
ing thunder  added  to  their  fright,  and,  in  the  language  of 
Little  Breeches,  they  ran  "hell-to-split"  over  the  prairie. 
The  driver  and  I  tugged  at  the  reins  with  all  our  might,  and 
he  put  his  weight  on  the  brake;  but  for  a  while  nothing 
could  hold  them  down.  It  was  an  exciting  moment  for  one 
passenger.  I  learned  afterward  that  those  inside  had  no 
idea  of  what  was  going  on  with  us  and  the  team,  as  the  cur- 
tains were  fastened  down  and  most  of  the  insiders  were 
asleep.  The  Jehu  shouted  to  me  that  the  situation  was  dan- 
gerous, as  we  had  left  the  trail,  and  that  at  any  minute  the 
horses  might  plunge  into  a  sluice  or  gully  and  wreck  the 
stage.  He  begged  me  to  clamber  down  to  the  double  tree 
and  loosen  the  traces  of  the  wheel-horses.  I  did  not  look 
favorably  upon  such  an  undertaking,  but  nothing  else 
seemed  to  be  left  to  save  us  from  disaster;  so  I  took  the 
chances  and  finally  unhitched  the  traces.  The  two  lead- 
horses  were  not  powerful  enough  to  run  with  the  whole 
load,  and  the  driver  soon  pulled  them  to  a  stop.  We  then 
rested  quietly  until  the  storm  blew  over,  and  the  stars  came 
out  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

I  recall  vividly  the  myriads  of  fireflies  which  the  rainfall 
seemed  to  have  moistened  into  life.  The  prairies  sparkled 
with  their  tiny  flashlights  until  the  flowers  and  blades  of 
grass  were  clearly  outlined,  while  above  through  the  rarefied 
atmosphere  in  the  aftermath  of  the  storm  the  stars  seemed 

343 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  be  only  just  beyond  our  reach.  This  brilHant  picture 
of  heaven  and  earth  lasted  until  the  dawn  put  out  all  these 
lesser  lights,  and  soon  the  whistle  of  the  locomotive  at  the 
terminus  told  us  we  were  near  Muscogee. 

We  found  it  a  city  of  tents.  There  was  only  one  frame 
house,  the  hotel,  a  one-story  shanty  built  of  undressed 
boards  and  primitive  in  every  particular.  In  June,  1909, 
thirty-seven  years  later,  I  revisited  this  spot  and  found  a 
rich  and  prosperous  city  of  about  forty  thousand  inhabitants. 

And  now,  in  closing  this  chapter  of  my  life  in  hospitable 
Arkansas,  I  ventiire  to  tell  my  catfish  story.  From  the 
time  of  Jonah  to  the  present  date  men  who  narrate  their 
fishing  experiences  have  run  the  risk  of  being  elected  to 
the  Ananias  Society.  I  have  incurred  danger  too  often  in 
my  checkered  career  and  escaped  too  luckily  to  be  deterred 
now  from  relating  the  following  incident,  which  is  told 
exactly  as  it  occurred.  As  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  I 
landed  three  catfish  at  one  time  with  a  single  hook  and  line. 
While  engaged  in  building  the  county  jail  at  Augusta,  and 
in  towing  the  barges  laden  with  the  huge  blocks  of  sand- 
stone from  the  quarry  on  Upper  White  River  to  De  Vall's 
Bluff,  I  relied  largely  for  the  meat  diet  of  my  employees  on 
the  excellent  fish  w^hich  were  then  abundant.  It  was  our 
custom  to  stretch  a  stout  trot-line  across  this  stream,  tying 
to  this  short  lines,  each  with  a  suitable  hook  attached,  about 
three  feet  apart.  The  hooks  were  baited  properly  at  sun- 
down, and  early  in  the  morning  the  line  was  "run"  and  the 
fish  were  taken  off  by  a  man  in  a  skiff.  On  one  of  these 
hooks  of  rather  large  size  I  placed  as  a  tempting  bait  a 
small  catfish  about  five  inches  long.  That  he  might  be 
swallowed  easily,  the  stiff  side-fins  were  chopped  off  and  the 
hook  was  carried  through  the  tail. 

344 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

In  running  the  line  next  morning,  a  number  of  fish  of 
ordinary  size  were  taken  off,  and  as  the  big  hook  was  ap- 
proached I  knew  by  the  way  the  line  was  being  whipped 
about  that  a  fish  of  unusual  size  had  been  caught.  When 
I  came  near  enough  I  saw  a  tremendous  catfish  fastened  to 
this  particular  short  line.  Projecting  from  its  mouth  there 
was  at  least  six  inches  of  the  tail  of  another  fish  of  the 
same  species.  When  I  realized  that  the  small  fish  with 
which  I  had  baited  this  hook  was  not  altogether  more  than 
five  inches  long,  my  surprise  may  be  imagined.  Meanwhile, 
I  slid  the  fingers  of  one  hand  beneath  the  gills  of  the  large 
fish  and  hauled  it  into  the  boat.  I  then  noticed,  projecting 
through  the  abdominal  wall  of  this  fish,  the  point  of  the 
strong  lateral  iin  of  the  one  whose  tail  was  sticking  out  of 
the  monster's  mouth. 

The  mystery  was  then  solved.  There  were  three  fish  in 
this  peculiar  combination.  The  little  fellow  with  the  hook 
had  been  swallowed  by  the  second  fish,  which  was  fully 
fourteen  inches  in  length.  The  third  had  swallowed  the 
second,  head  foremost,  for  about  three-fourths  of  its  length. 
It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  anterior  lateral  fins  of  this  species 
of  fish  that  they  can  be  folded  back  flat  against  the  body, 
but  when  brought  forward  they  are  so  hinged  that  they 
stop  abruptly  at  a  right  angle  to  the  axis  of  the  body. 

No  doubt  when  the  huge  fish  discovered  it  could  not  swim 
away  with  its  victim,  an  effort  was  made  to  disgorge,  but 
in  doing  this  the  powerful  sharp  lateral  fins  expanded  and 
hopelessly  impaled  him.  To  satisfy  my  curiosity  I  opened 
the  stomach  of  the  second  fish,  and  there,  with  the  hook,  I 
found  the  macerated  remains  of  the  bait.  Captain  Joe 
Glover  was  in  the  boat  with  me  when  the  catch  was  made. 
Some  twenty-five  years  later  this  good  friend,  whom  I  had 

23  345 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

not  seen  since  our  Arkansas  days,  was  master  of  a  steam- 
boat in  the  Tennessee  River  trade.  When  we  met  we  natu- 
rally began  to  talk  over  old  times  in  the  West,  and  he  asked 
me  if  I  had  ever  ventured  to  relate  our  fish  story.  I  replied 
that  I  had  told  it  only  to  some  intimate  friends  who  would 
take  my  word  that  it  was  true.  He  then  said:  "You  were 
wise  to  exercise  discretion,  for  I  lost  my  reputation  for 
veracity  by  telling  of  that  experience  exactly  as  it  occurred 
to  a  lot  of  drummers  who  were  traveling  with  me.  It  was  a 
cold  night,  and  we  were  sitting  around  the  stove  in  the  for- 
ward cabin.  When  I  finished  they  all  got  up  and  went  out 
to  get  some  fresh  air;  and  there,  after  a  consultation,  they 
baptized  me  as  'Catfish  Glover,  the  brother  of  Jonah  and 
friend  of  Ananias'!" 


XXIII 

AT  BELLEVUE  MEDICAL  COLLEGE — WORK  IN  THE  DISSECTING- 
ROOM ASSISTANT     DEMONSTRATOR     AND     PROSECTOR     TO 

THE    CHAIR    OF   ANATOMY BEGINNING    OF   THE    PRIZE    ES- 
SAYS   IN    SURGICAL   ANATOMY   AND    SURGERY THE    STUDY 

OF    GREEK,    GERMAN,    AND    FRENCH 1872    TO    1878 

When  I  arrived  in  New  York  City  in  October,  1872,  I 
made  a  careful  survey  of  the  three  medical  schools — viz., 
the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  at  Twenty-third 
Street  and  Fourth  Avenue;  University  Medical  College,  at 
Twenty-sixth  Street  and  East  River;  and  Bellevue  Hospital 
Medical  College,  within  the  inclosure  of  the  great  hospital, 
the  name  of  which  it  bore.  To  my  great  surprise  and  dis- 
appointment, there  were  no  special  courses  for  graduates; 
and,  as  clinical  experience  and  practical  anatomy  were  the 
chief  attractions  for  me,  I  selected  Bellevue  College  as  offer- 
ing the  best  advantages,  and  matriculated  there  in  Novem- 
ber, 1872,  Attending  the  lectures  in  only  three  branches — 
surgery,  medicine,  and  obstetrics — I  graduated,  taking  the 
ad  eundem  degree  in  March,  1873.  The  rest  of  my  time 
was  devoted  to  the  clinics  in  surgery  in  the  hospital  and 
chiefly  to  dissecting.  In  order  to  become  adept  with  either 
hand  I  worked  unremittingly  with  my  left  hand  until  I 
became  ambidextrous,  and  in  all  my  active  career  this  has 
been  of  inestimable  value. 

Not  only  every  surgeon,  but  every  human  being  should 
be  made  ambidextrous.     It  is  of  vital  importance  to  re- 

347 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

member  this  in  the  training  of  infants  and  children.  The 
use  of  the  preferred  member  (usually  the  right)  should  be 
discouraged  and  the  opposite  hand  and  arm  encouraged 
until  both  are  fully  useful.  By  no  other  method  can  the 
human  brain  be  brought  to  its  full  efficiency. 

While  at  Louisville  I  had  devoted  most  of  my  time  to  the 
study  of  practical  anatomy,  and  now  at  Bellevue,  with  an 
inexhaustible  supply  of  material,  I  saw  the  opportunity  for 
which  I  had  longed.  The  demonstrator  of  anatomy  was 
Edward  G.  Janeway,  and  I  missed  no  chance  to  be  of  ser- 
vice to  him,  as  he  had  no  regular  assistant.  The  students, 
when  he  was  over-busy  or  absent,  soon  got  into  the  habit 
of  coming  to  me  for  demonstrations,  especially  of  the  more 
complicated  regions  and  organs.  As  the  brain  was  consid- 
ered the  most  difficult  of  all,  I  devoted  a  great  deal  of  care- 
ful study  to  it.  Among  those  who  had  gathered  around  the 
table  at  which  I  was  seated  on  the  occasion  of  one  of  these 
demonstrations  I  happened  to  notice  a  middle-aged  gentle- 
man of  distinguished  appearance  who  seemed  to  be  more 
than  ordinarily  interested.  As  we  were  leaving  the  college 
he  joined  me,  and  together  we  walked  up  Twenty-seventh 
Street  to  near  Lexington  Avenue.  He  wanted  to  know 
where  I  came  from  and  what  plans  I  had  for  the  future ;  and 
I  told  him  I  had  come  to  New  York  to  stay,  and  my  main 
object  at  that  time  was  to  earn  a  living.  He  stopped  in 
front  of  a  very  handsome  brick  house,  and  in  a  way  which 
bespoke  his  sincerity  as  well  as  his  kindness  of  heart  said: 
"This  is  my  home.  My  wife  and  I  live  here.  We  will  be 
glad  to  have  you  Hve  with  us.  You  can  pay  for  your  board 
by  tutoring  me  as  your  private  medical  student."  I  could 
not  accept  his  generous  offer ;  but  he  was  for  three  years  my 
private  pupil  until  he  took  the  degree  of  M.D.  at  Bellevue, 

343 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

He  was  already  a  graduate  in  arts,  divinity,  and  law.  A 
minister  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  he  had  been  Presi- 
dent of  the  University  at  Fulton,  Missouri.  When  the  war 
broke  out,  because  of  his  strong  Southern  sympathy,  he  was 
arrested  and  given  the  alternative  of  a  residence  on  parole 
within  the  limits  of  New  York  City  or  banishment  to 
Europe  or  a  prison.      He  chose  the  former. 

With  no  pulpit  and  no  source  of  revenue,  his  great  mind 
found  its  activity  in  invention,  and  the  well-known  instru- 
ment to  register  in  type  by  telegraphy  the  quotations  of 
stocks  and  bonds — "the  ticker,"  now  in  universal  use — was 
the  result;  and  from  this  he  received  an  ample  fortune. 
In  later  years  he  accepted  the  presidency  of  the  University 
of  Missouri,  and  in  the  course  of  time  retired,  and  is  now 
(1914),  at  a  very  advanced  age,  still  in  the  full  possession 
of  his  faculties,  residing  in  Washington  City.  I  was  proud 
to  be  associated  with  this  great  and  good  man  as  his  teacher 
in  medicine,  and  grateful  for  the  affectionate  friendship  he 
proved  for  me  when  I  was  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land. 
When  my  Prize  Essays  on  the  Arteries  was  published,  in 
1879,  the  volume  was  dedicated  to  "Samuel  Spahr  Laws, 
A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  M.D." 

During  the  winter  of  1872  and  '73  I  made  a  dissection  of 
a  child  of  ten  years,  a  dried  preparation,  arranged  in  the 
standing  posture,  with  the  muscles,  arteries,  veins,  and 
nerves  stained  in  appropriate  colors.  It  fell  under  the  eye 
of  the  professor  of  anatomy,  Alpheus  B.  Crosby,  a  genial, 
gifted  gentleman  and  the  most  popular  lecturer  at  Bellevue. 
It  led  to  an  acquaintance  and  a  warm  friendship,  which 
continued  to  the  day  of  his  untimely  death  in  1878.  In 
1874,  a  vacancy  occurring,  he  appointed  me  as  prosector 
to  the  chair  of  anatomy.     A  year  previous,  within  a  month 

349 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

of  my  graduation  at  Bellevue,  Dr.  E.  G.  Janeway  had  offered 
me  and  I  had  accepted  the  position  of  assistant  demon- 
strator of  anatomy,  and  he  and  I  made  all  the  demonstra- 
tions and  did  all  the  practical  teachings  of  the  dissecting- 
room  for  one  session.  A  year  later  Dr.  Joseph  D.  Bryant 
was  made  an  assistant  demonstrator,  and,  Dr.  Janeway 
retiring  from  the  active  work,  we  ran  the  dissecting-room 
and  organized  what  was  known  as  the  "faculty  quiz,"  al- 
though the  faculty  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Dr.  Bryant 
and  I  divided  subjects  equally  and  covered  the  entire  range 
of  medicine  and  surgery.  It  was  considered,  and  was,  at 
least  numerically,  the  most  successful  quiz  ever  known  up  to 
that  period  in  New  York.  We  had  in  one  session  ninety- 
six  pupils,  and  we  were  both  fully  appreciative  of  the  hand- 
some and  much  needed  revenue  which  our  college  association 
yielded. 

I  began  the  study  of  pathology  in  1875,  under  Dr.  Jane- 
way, in  his  laboratory  and  as  his  assistant  at  autopsies  in 
the  morgue.  I  believe  this  was  the  first  laboratory  estab- 
lished in  New  York.  It  occupied  a  part  of  the  old  Wood 
Museum  over  the  morgue.  With  such  a  fascinating  sub- 
ject, and  the  new  world  which  the  microscope  revealed,  it 
was  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege  to  be  associated  with  this 
enthusiastic  teacher.  No  one  could  be  with  him  as  in- 
timately as  I  was  and  not  catch  the  contagion.  In  our  set 
every  one  was  working  under  pressure.  There  were  no 
loafers  or  shirkers.  The  fault,  if  it  were  one,  was  over- 
work. By  way  of  illustration,  I  recall  one  very  busy  day 
in  July  or  August  when  a  great  many  bodies  were  being 
brought  in  dead  from  sunstroke.  We  had  made  six  exam- 
inations of  the  brain  in  these  cases — and  sawing  off  the 
top  of  the  skull  in  order  to  examine  and  remove  this  organ 

-350 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

with  the  least  possible  injury  is  no  light  task,  especially  in 
sunstroke  weather.  It  was  nearly  dark,  and  I  was  tired, 
and  Dr.  Janeway  should  have  been,  when  the  grim  old 
keeper  of  the  morgue  approached  us  and  said,  "  'Nother  sun- 
stroke." I  couldn't  give  in  first,  and  he  wouldn't,  for  he 
said  quietly,  after  I  had  read  in  his  expression  that  there  was 
no  escape,  "Wyeth,  we  might  as  well  take  a  look  at  it," 
and  I  proceeded  to  saw  off  the  top  of  another  cranium. 

The  New  York  Pathological  Society  was  the  first  scien- 
tific organization  I  joined  in  New  York  City,  and  for  many 
years  I  rarely  missed  a  meeting  in  that  dingy  basement  of 
the  old  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  at  Twenty- 
third  Street  and  Fourth  Avenue.  It  was  a  great  privilege 
to  be  brought  in  contact  with  the  members  of  this  society, 
for  they  taught  me  more  than  I  could  have  learned  else- 
where. It  was  here  that  I  first  became  acquainted  with  the 
great  and  good  Dr.  Abraham  Jacobi,  and  laid  the  foundation 
of  a  lasting  and  affectionate  friendship. 

As  I  had  quit  college  at  the  end  of  my  freshman  year,  and 
had  never  studied  Greek,  feeling  now  the  need  of  at  least 
a  rudimentary  knowledge  of  this  language,  I  secured  as 
instructor  Mr.  Virginius  Dabney,  a  graduate  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia,  and  will  always  be  grateful  to  him  for 
the  patience  he  showed  a  not  too  apt  pupil.  I  had  studied 
French,  and  coiild  read  it  satisfactorily.  In  the  effort  to 
learn  to  speak  it,  or  at  least  to  understand  it  when  spoken, 
I  took  table  board  with  a  Parisian  family  resident  in  New 
York  and  remained  with  them  for  four  years.  Meal-time 
was  the  only  opportunity  for  this,  as  all  my  other  hours  were 
occupied.  Later  with  a  tutor  I  undertook  the  study  of 
German,  and  devoted  as  much  time  as  I  could  afford  to  the 
grammar  and  in  translations,  and  with  a  German  family 

351 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

repeated  my  French  boarding-house  experience  of  four 
years.  This  training  was  of  inestimable  value  to  me  when 
in  1 88 1  I  was  appointed  visiting  surgeon  to  Mt.  Sinai  Hos- 
pital, where  very  many  patients  could  speak  no  other 
language  than  German.  For  a  number  of  years  I  sub- 
scribed for  and  read  consistently  the  Gazette  des  Hopitanx 
and  Ccntralhlati  fiir  Chirurgic,  and  bought  the  leading  books 
on  surgery  and  pathology  in  the  French  and  German  lan- 
guages. To  have  access  to  all  the  dissecting  material  I 
could  use  was  of  incalculable  value,  and  I  not  only  utilized 
it  for  teaching  purposes,  but  for  scientific  investigations. 

In  one  of  his  always  instructive  clinics  in  the  great  amphi- 
theater in  Bellevue  Hospital  Professor  Stephen  Smith  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  in  Syme's  amputation  at  the 
ankle,  as  practised,  there  frequently  occurred  a  sloughing 
of  the  posterior  flap.  In  order  to  discover  the  cause  of  this 
I  made  a  series  of  dissections  (eighty-seven  in  all)  of  the 
ankle-joint  and  its  blood-supply,  which  were  embodied  in 
an  "Essay  upon  the  Surgical  Anatomy  of  the  Tibio-tarsal 
Region,  with  special  regard  to  Amputations  at  the  Ankle- 
joint."  This  essay  received  in  1876  the  annual  prize  of  one 
hundred  dollars  offered  by  Professor  James  R.  Wood  to  the 
Alumni  Association  of  the  Bellevue  Hospital  Medical  Col- 
lege for  "the  best  essay  on  any  subject  connected  with 
surgical  pathology  or  operative  surgery."  In  this  same 
period  I  began  my  work  upon  the  carotid  arteries  which 
led  to  an  important  contribution  to  practical  surgery — viz.y 
the  ligation  of  the  external  carotid  artery. 

In  a  lecture  upon  the  surgery  of  the  neck  Professor 
Frank  Hamilton,  one  of  the  greatest  surgeons  of  his  day, 
author  of  a  work  on  fractures  and  dislocations,  which  was 
the  leading  book  on  this  subject  during  his  lifetime,  said 

352 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

that  the  branches  of  this  artery  were  so  irregular  in  origin 
and  arrangement,  and  often  so  close  together,  that  a  ligature 
should  never  be  applied  to  it,  and  he  added  that  it  seemed 
to  be  an  exception  to  the  general  law  of  development  of  the 
arterial  system  in  man.  His  teaching,  which  was  strictly 
in  accordance  with  the  accepted  methods  of  that  time,  was 
that  the  common  carotid  should  be  tied  for  all  lesions  in 
the  distribution  of  the  external  branch.  I  heard  this  with 
great  surprise,  for  if  I  had  one  absolutely  fixed  conviction 
it  was  that  there  could  be  no  exceptions  to  the  great  law  of 
development  which,  to  my  mind,  was  part  of  the  harmony 
of  the  universe.  There  might  be  here  and  there  abnor- 
malities due  to  accident  or  to  faulty  arrangements  and  mal- 
nutrition of  the  blastodermic  cells;  but  these  were  of  the 
individual,  and  not  general.  I  went  away  from  the  lecture 
saying,  "It  can't  be  so,  and  I  must  prove  it."  This  was  in 
1875,  and  between  this  date  and  1878  I  made  one  hundred 
and  twenty-one  dissections  of  the  human  neck  with  especial 
regard  to  the  origin  of  the  branches  given  off  from  this 
vessel.  Careful  measurements  with  pointers  and  rule  were 
made  of  the  distance  of  every  branch  from  the  bifurcation 
of  the  common  trunk  and  from  one  another.  The  demon- 
stration was  complete,  that  these  vessels  obeyed  a  law  as 
fixed  as  that  of  the  other  arteries,  and  that  the  external 
branch  could  and  should  be  tied,  and  that  the  common  trunk 
should  never  he  ligated  on  account  of  a  lesion  in  the  distribution 
of  the  external  carotid.  Going  further  into  the  literature  of 
the  surgery  of  the  neck  and  tabulating  all  reported  cases  up 
to  that  date,  I  showed  that  in  the  entire  history  the  external 
carotid  had  been  tied  only  sixty-nine  times,  and  the  death- 
rate  in  these  cases  was  only  four  and  one-half  per  cent., 
while  in  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine  cases  in  which  the 

353 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

common  trunk  had  been  ligated  the  death-rate  was  forty- 
one  per  cent. 

While  at  this  work  in  this  same  region  I  extended  my  in- 
vestigations to  the  subclavian  and  innominate  arteries,  and 
embodied  the  entire  work  in  one  essay  which  was  offered 
in  competition  for  one  of  the  two  prizes  to  be  given  by  the 
American  Medical  Association  at  the  meeting  at  Buffalo 
in  1878.     The  report  of  the  committee  was  as  follows: 

Your  committee  to  determine  the  merits  of  the  prize  essays  would  re- 
spectfully report:  That  they  have  had  three  separate  papers  submitted 
to  their  inspection.  Two  of  these  papers  present  subjects  of  very  great 
interest  and  show  original  research,  but  are  too  imperfect  in  the  estima- 
tion of  the  committee  to  command  a  prize.  The  remaining  paper,  in 
the  judgment  of  your  committee,  is  fully  up  to  the  requirements.  In- 
deed, the  paper  is  so  elaborate  as  to  fill  a  large  space  in  the  volumes  of 
the  Transactions  of  the  Association.  The  paper  should  be  considered  as 
two,  and  not  as  one.  The  analysis  of  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine  cases 
of  operation  on  the  carotid  artery,  and  the  careful  and  minute  measure- 
ments of  the  artery  and  its  branches  in  one  hundred  and  twenty-one  sub- 
jects, showing  the  range  of  variation  and  the  percentage  of  the  same, 
followed  by  inferences,  bold  and  original,  naturally  constitute  a  paper 
complete  in  itself.  Another  one  on  the  same  plan,  with  reference  to  the 
innominate  and  subclavian,  being  an  analysis  of  three  hundred  cases, 
and  the  observation  of  fifty-two  subjects,  is  presented  to  us  in  such  a 
manner  that  we  may  consider  the  whole  as  one  prize,  or  they  may  com- 
pete for  both. 

Your  committee  believe  that  both  prizes  should  be  awarded  to  the  two 
essays  by  one  person.  The  motto  is,  "  Tempera  mutantur,  et  nos  mutamur 
in  ill  is." 

R.  M.  MooRE,  Chairman, 
Thos.  Lothrop, 
H.  R.  Hopkins, 
W.  W.  Miner. 
Buffalo,  New  York,  June  6,  187S. 

These  essays  were  printed  by  the  association  and  widely 
distributed,  and  the  demonstration  accepted  by  surgical 
writers  and  operators  throughout  the  world.     To  the  date 

354 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  publication  of  these  essays  there  was  not  a  work  in  sur- 
gery in  the  EngHsh,  French,  or  German  languages  which 
did  not  condemn  the  operation  I  now  insisted  upon.  Within 
five  years  from  that  date  the  operation  was  so  generally 
accepted  that  no  other  was  advised.  The  death-rate  now 
is  practically  7til. 

About  the  time  the  award  was  to  be  made  I  sailed  for 
'Europe,  and  had  no  word  of  the  success  or  failure  of  my 
work  until  two  or  three  weeks  later,  when,  while  in  a  public 
reading-room  in  London,  I  happened  to  see  a  paragraph  in  the 
New  York  Times  stating  that  both  prizes  had  been  awarded 
to  me.  This  was  my  first  great  triumph,  for  I  knew  I  had 
overthrown  an  old  procediure  based  on  a  false  hypothesis, 
and  had  established  a  new  and  safer  method.  It  has  al- 
ready saved  many  lives,  and  it  will  continue  to  do  so  as 
long  as  time  endures.  The  old  operation  cut  off  the  direct 
blood-supply  and  nutrition  to  one-half  of  the  brain,  inter- 
fering with  its  function  until  a  collateral  circulation  could 
be  established;  the  new  one  left  the  nutrition  of  this  vital 
organ  unimpaired.  Although  the  text-books  on  surgery  gave 
credit  to  the  author  for  several  years  after  the  essays  were 
published  by  the  American  Medical  Association,  strange  as 
it  may  appear,  my  name  is  no  longer  associated  with  this 
operation. 

Dr.  Henry  B.  Sands,  Professor  of  Surgery  in  the  College 
of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  in  New  York  City,  then  by 
common  consent  our  leading  surgeon,  to  whom  personally 
I  was  unknown,  with  a  generous  appreciation  which  touched 
me  deeply,  called  at  my  office  and  spoke  in  terms  of  highest 
commendation  of  this  work.  Every  year  as  long  as  he  lived 
he  devoted  one  or  two  lectures  to  this  subject,  and  later 
did  me  the  very  great  honor  to  nominate  me  for  the  position 

355 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  visiting  surgeon  to  Bellevue  Hospital.  I  was  greatly  im- 
pressed by  this  offer;  and  when  he  said  that  as  professor 
of  surgery  he  had  the  privilege  of  a  nomination  to  Bellevue 
Hospital  in  the  service  allotted  to  his  college,  I  replied  that 
I  would  be  very  grateful  for  the  appointment,  but  as  there 
were  a  number  of  ambitious  and  competent  young  surgeons 
already  connected  with  the  college  who  wanted  this  posi- 
tion, and  as  I  was  an  outsider,  I  thought  it  doubtful  if  the 
faculty  would  elect  me.  To  this  he  answered  in  his  quick, 
direct  way:  "That's  their  business.  It's  my  duty  to  nomi- 
nate the  best  man  I  know  for  the  place,  and  if  they  don't 
choose  to  elect  him  it  will  not  be  my  fault."  I  was  defeated; 
but  the  nomination,  coming  from  such  a  man  and  in  the  way 
it  did,  was  a  great  compliment. 

Several  months  after  the  essays  were  made  public,  I  re- 
member on  one  rainy  night  Dr.  Herman  Knapp,  who  had 
been  professor  of  ophthalmology — I  think  at  Heidelberg — 
and  was  now  recognized  as  the  head  of  this  specialty  in 
America,  called  at  my  office,  44  West  27th  Street,  and  as 
he  walked  in  pulled  from  beneath  his  raincoat  a  volume, 
and,  opening  it,  said,  "I  thought  you  would  be  pleased  to 
see  how  your  work  is  being  received  in  Germany,"  adding, 
when  I  remonstrated  with  him  for  coming  out  in  such  a 
storm,  that  the  book  had  just  come,  and  he  wanted  me  to 
see  it.  It  was,  if  I  remember  correctly,  Sattler  and  Graefe's 
Handbuch  or  Archiv  fur  Ophthalmologie.  I  could  never  be 
unmindful  of  such  thoughtfulness  and  kindness  from  this 
great  and  good  man. 

Professor  Lewis  A.  Sayre  was  in  1872,  and  for  many  years 
thereafter,  the  leading  orthopedic  surgeon  of  America.  I 
have  always  credited  him  with  being  the  founder  of  this 
specialty.     Mentally  and  physically  he  was  a  man  of  large 

356 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

proportions  and  of  convincing  personality.  In  his  lectures, 
believing  what  he  taught  to  be  true,  he  threw  into  his  subject 
an  earnestness  and  an  enthusiasm  which  either  carried  con- 
viction or  made  you  go  away  feeling  profoundly  sorry  that 
it  didn't.  The  perspiration  would  stand  in  beads  upon  his 
fine,  broad  forehead,  and  in  those  moments  devoted  to 
denunciation  of  any  who  dared  to  oppose  his  theories  his 
eyes  would  light  up  with  the  piercing  keenness  of  an  eagle's, 
and,  moving  to  and  fro  with  surprising  agility  in  one  so 
portly,  he  would  pound  with  his  powerful  arm  and  fist  the 
table  or  railing,  or  patient,  or  anything  that  came  in  the 
way.  No  student  who  loved  a  rare  treat  ever  willingly 
missed  a  lecture  by  this  able,  genial,  warm-hearted,  and 
eccentric  surgeon.  I  made  his  acquaintance  soon  after  I 
came  to  New  York,  and  he  was  more  than  kind  to  me.  Later 
he  placed  his  two  eldest  sons  as  private  pupils  with  me, 
and  went  so  far  as  to  offer  in  return  for  my  work  as  his 
assistant  a  room  and  office  in  his  beautiful  Fifth  Avenue 
residence.  His  contributions  to  surgery  are  valuable  and 
lasting,  and  make  him  a  benefactor  of  mankind.  His  en- 
thusiasm and  devotion  to  science  knew  no  bounds,  which 
may  possibly  be  inferred  from  a  personal  experience  which 
I  narrate,  not  without  some  misgiving  as  to  its  propriety. 

A  celebrated  negro  minstrel,  whose  tall  stature,  slender 
proportions,  and  unusually  lengthy  extremities  were  clever- 
ly exaggerated  by  a  wonderful  make-up,  and  who  had  long 
entertained  theater-goers  by  his  grotesque  performances, 
died  suddenly.  He  was  a  great  favorite  of  mine,  and  I  had 
observed  a  very  remarkable  and  unnatural  mobility  of  the 
right  arm,  which  he  could  twist  and  bend  in  so  many  usual- 
ly impossible  directions  that  it  occurred  to  me  he  must  have 
another  ball-and-socket  joint  in  this  member  elsewhere  than 

357 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

at  the  shoulder.  Very  early  one  morning  Dr.  Sayre  called 
at  my  office,  and  in  his  usual  earnest  way  said:    "Wyeth, 

died  last  night.     Fifteen  years  ago  he  consulted 

me  in  regard  to  his  arm,  and  I  found  an  ununited  fracture 
of  the  humerus  communicating  with  the  elbow,  and  such 
free  and  abnormal  motion  in  all  directions  that  I  asked, 
and  he  promised  me,  that  when  he  died  I  should  have  the 
bones  at  the  elbow.     I  want  you  to  help  me  get  them." 

It  was  agreed  that  I  should  be  introduced  as  an  embalmer ; 
and,  securing  the  outfit  for  injecting  the  arteries  with  pre- 
servative fluids  at  the  college,  we  arrived  at  the  dead  man's 
home.  With  a  face  expressive  of  the  most  profound  sym- 
pathy and  a  voice  trembling  with  emotion,  he  spoke  to  the 
family  of  his  departed  friend  and  patient,  telling  them  that 
the  last  time  he  had  treated  him — he  called  him  by  his 
familiar  name — he  had  exacted  a  promise  that  should  he 
die  first  the  doctor  would  see  that  he  was  not  buried  with- 
out being  embalmed.  He  had  called  now  to  fulfil  that 
promise,  and  had  brought  to  do  the  work  the  most  experi- 
enced embalmer  in  New  York,  and  I  was  introduced.  In 
this  case  the  artery  selected  was  the  right  brachial  near  the 
elbow,  and  when  the  operation  was  completed  the  lower 
four  inches  of  the  humerus  and  as  much  of  the  ulna  and 
radius  below  the  joint  were  reposing  in  the  embalmer's 
inside  pocket,  and  three  small  sticks  of  kindling  pine  repre- 
sented the  absent  bones.  Natura  vacuum  ahhorret.  There 
had  been  a  transverse  fracture  of  the  humerus  just  above 
the  elbow,  and  the  lower  fragment  had  broken  in  two  in 
the  middle.  The  interesting  feature  was  that  a  new  joint 
had  formed,  practically  a  ball  and  socket,  with  a  new  cap- 
sular ligament  and  new  cartilage  on  the  broken  ends  oj  the 
bones! 

358 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  night  following  this  interesting  experience  I  had  a 
dream  which  developed  into  one  of  the  most  realistic  and 
frightful  nightmares  I  have  ever  experienced.  I  had  only 
a  few  evenings  before  witnessed  a  performance  by  this 
actor,  and  on  that  occasion  he  wore  shoes  several  inches 
longer  than  his  foot.  As  he  walked  or  danced  the  unfilled 
tips  were  made  to  flap  loudly  on  the  floor.  His  white  cotton 
jacket  was  too  short  by  a  foot,  and  the  baggy  trousers 
stopped  just  below  the  knee,  bringing  into  view  his  long, 
thin  shanks  covered  with  black  stockings.  He  wore  a  wig 
so  arranged  that  when,  depicting  fright,  he  touched  a  spring 
his  hair  would  stand  on  end,  stiff  and  erect  as  broom-straws, 
and  upon  the  center  of  the  top  of  his  head  reposed  a  di- 
minutive Dunlap  silk  hat  which  would  have  adorned  and 
not  been  too  large  for  an  organ-grinder's  monkey. 

I  dreamed  that  some  one  was  coming  up  the  stairway 
toward  the  room  in  which  I  was  sleeping.  The  steps  were 
slow  and  deliberate,  and  intended  to  be  noiseless,  but  I 
recognized  as  each  foot  touched  the  riser  a  peculiar  flap  of 
the  shoe,  and  then  I  was  seized  with  the  frightful  conviction 
that  the  dead  man  was  coming  for  me.  I  tried  to  get  up 
and  go  to  the  door,  to  be  sure  it  was  locked,  but  could  not 
move.  I  heard  the  key  turn,  and  saw  distinctly  the  slowly 
widening  crack  of  the  opening  door,  through  which  appeared 
the  blackened  face  and  hair  on  end  and  tiny  stove-pipe  hat, 
and  as  I  groaned  for  help  he  lifted  one  foot  with  the  long 
shoe  just  as  I  had  seen  him  do  at  the  theater  when  he 
would  place  this  member  on  Dan  Bryant's  shoulder,  draw 
him  toward  himself,  and  say  triumphantly,  "I  got  you  now!" 
As  he  said  this  to  me  the  door  flew  open,  and  he  jumped  on 
my  chest  and  danced  a  double  back  step  which  ended  by 
his  swinging  the  sole  of  that  long  shoe  slowly  and  deliber- 

359 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ately  over  my  mouth  and  nose,  until,  to  save  myself  from 
suffocation,  I  made  one  final,  desperate  effort  to  wake  up, 
and  found  myself  rolling  to  the  floor. 

Dreaming  is  to  me  a  strange  and  inexplicable  mental 
process.  Some  of  these  images  or  impressions,  which  our 
will  does  not  conjure  up  and  cannot  control,  and  which  ap- 
pear to  be  absolutely  foreign  to  our  waking  brain-action, 
we  fail  to  register  and  they  are  forgotten,  while  others,  as 
the  one  just  detailed,  remain  indelibly  printed  in  our  memory 
cells  and  come  back  over  and  over  again  in  our  waking  hours. 
It  is  the  same  with  the  dream  or  delirium  in  disease.  When 
at  eighteen  I  was  very  ill  in  prison  with  pneumonia  I  was 
told  during  convalescence  that  I  had  been  out  of  my  head, 
which  I  knew  already,  for  when  I  became  conscious  I  re- 
membered vividly,  as  I  still  do,  this  wild,  disordered  dream: 
I  was  on  a  train,  the  day  was  hot,  the  water  gave  out,  and 
after  what  seemed  an  interminable  run  we  stopped  by  the 
side  of  a  high  bluff  from  the  side  of  which,  at  a  point  in- 
accessible except  by  crawling  along  a  gradually  narrowing 
ledge,  so  high  that  it  was  sure  death  to  fall,  a  stream  of  cool, 
crystal  water  was  trickling.  The  ledge  gave  out  before  I 
could  reach  the  spring,  and  I  was  moaning  over  the  disap- 
pointment and  evidently  asking  for  water,  when  some  one 
put  a  tin-cupful  in  my  hand  and  held  my  head  up  while  I 
emptied  it.  Reason  came  back  with  this,  and  that  dream 
of  delirium  was  indelibly  registered.  It  is  as  clear  in  my 
memory  cells  at  this  time  (forty-nine  years  later)  as  it  was 
then. 

While  on  the  subject  of  dreams  I  must  commit  myself 
to  another  conviction — namely,  that  in  our  waking  hours 
our  brains  register  impressions  of  which  at  the  time  we  fail 
to  be  conscious,  and  which  become  recognizable  images  or 

360 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

pictures  either  while  asleep  or  upon  wakening  after  (prob- 
ably a  restful  and  refreshing)  slumber.  I  know  this  has  been 
my  experience,  and  it  has  led  me  to  accept  the  theory  of 
the  subconscious  mind.  I  first  noticed  this  mental  process 
when  as  a  youth  I  undertook  to  train  my  mind  to  be  quick 
in  memorizing.  My  first  long  task  was  the  third  canto  of 
"Childe  Harold."  The  Spenserian  measure,  the  evenly 
sustained  beauty  and  rhythm,  and  the  deep  feeling  which 
pervades  this  (to  me)  most  attractive  poem  in  our  language, 
naturally  led  to  its  preference.  I  committed  to  memory 
this  canto  of  about  nine  hundred  lines,  and  recited  it  pub- 
licly on  one  or  two  occasions.  While  engaged  in  this  task 
I  noticed  that  not  infrequently  when  in  the  late  afternoon 
or  evening  I  would  read  over  some  unlearned  stanzas,  which 
I  could  not  remember,  I  would  awaken  the  next  morning 
and  could  recite  them  word  for  word.  Incidentally,  in  ex- 
perimenting I  found  that  from  lo  to  12  a.m.,  just  about  the 
time  that  the  breakfast  digestion  process  was  finished,  was 
the  period  when  I  coiild  memorize  with  greatest  facility. 

Another  interesting  personal  experience  comes  to  my 
mind.  In  1902  a  boy  was  brought  to  me  from  Cuba  with 
a  condition  of  the  forearm  which  gave  me  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  to  understand.  This  case  is  given  with  others  in 
another  book  as  an  original  contribution  to  surgery.  For 
four  or  five  days  I  thought  over  the  history  of  his  injury  and 
the  resulting  inability  to  rotate  the  radius  around  the  ulna 
— in  other  words,  to  turn  his  hand  over.  About  three  in 
the  morning  I  awoke  with  a  perfectly  clear  conception  of 
the  cause  of  the  inability;  and  I  removed  it  by  operation 
that  morning.  I  was  so  afraid  I  would  forget  it  if  I  fell 
asleep  again  that  I  made  a  note  of  it  at  once. 

The  study  of  anatomy,  both  human  and  comparative, 
24  361 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

had  for  me  a  great  fascination,  so  much  so  that  at  one  time 
I  beUeve  I  would  have  devoted  my  Hfe  to  it  had  I  had  an 
independent  income.  And  yet  I  recall  with  what  horror 
I  first  smelt  and  saw  the  inside  of  a  dissecting-room.  This 
soon  gave  way ;  for  I  saw  how  wonderful  was  the  structure 
of  the  human  body,  and  how  essential  to  a  satisfactory  and 
successful  tmderstanding  and  treatment  of  disease  and  in- 
jury was  a  practical  knowledge  of  each  organ,  or  part,  in 
relation  to  the  whole.  But  for  the  situation  of  Bellevue 
as  a  workshop,  and  the  associations  which  gave  me  free 
access  to  the  morgue  and  one  of  the  largest  dissecting-rooms 
in  New  York,  I  could  never  have  secured  the  material  to 
use  in  successfully  carrying  out  my  investigations.  As  it 
was,  I  had  at  one  period,  and  for  quite  a  while,  to  resort  to 
the  "underground"  method  of  investigation. 

Connected  with  the  old  morgue  there  was  a  large,  square 
room  used  for  storing  great  stocks  of  the  plain-plank  coffins 
in  which  the  imclaimed  dead  were  carried  away  to  the  pot- 
ter's field.  From  the  center  of  the  ceiling  hung  an  unused 
gas-chandelier.  There  were  two  windows,  and  the  single 
door  which  opened  into  the  morgue.  I  arranged  with  the 
keeper  to  cover  the  windows  with  thick  cloth  and  stack  the 
coffins  in  such  a  way  that  a  good-sized  room  was  secured, 
to  which  entrance  could  be  had  without  being  suspected, 
and  in  which  I  could  work  night  and  day  without  being  in- 
terrupted. With  the  help  of  my  good  friend  the  keeper 
I  used  this  cave  with  great  satisfaction  for  two  years,  until 
I  had  completed  my  work,  and  no  one  ever  knew  it  beyond 
the  two  most  interested.  These  dissections  were  usually 
made  after  ten  o'clock,  when  my  official  duties  were  over 
and  the  college  had  closed  for  the  night. 

Not  infrequently  I  became  so  interested  in  the  subject 

362 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

under  investigation  that  I  forgot  about  time  or  became  so 
tired  or  sleepy  I  simply  had  to  quit.  I  rarely  went  to  bed 
before  twelve  or  one  o'clock,  and  sometimes  later.  On  one 
occasion  I  fell  asleep  and  received  such  a  shock  when  I 
awoke  that  I  never  forgot  it.  Late  one  stormy  night  the 
keeper  had  gone  home  and  I  was  the  only  living  thing  left 
except  the  rats,  which  were  often  too  companionable,  with 
coffins  all  about  and  anywhere  from  twenty-five  to  fifty 
cadavers  in  reach.  I  was  dissecting  the  right  axilla  or  arm- 
pit, the  arm  stretched  out  at  a  right  angle  to  the  body, 
and  a  block  beneath  the  shoulder-blades,  which  let  the  sub- 
ject's head  drop  backward.  My  arm  was  resting  on  the 
dead  man's  chest,  and  as  I  fell  asleep  the  weight  of  my  head 
and  upper  portion  of  the  body  rested  on  my  arm  and  upon 
the  ribs  of  the  cadaver.  These  being  elastic,  and  the  lungs 
the  same,  gradually  and  noiselessly  the  residual  air  was 
pressed  out  of  the  lungs.  When  I  awoke,  startled  at  the 
idea  of  falling  asleep  under  such  conditions,  as  I  raised  my 
head  I  suddenly  took  the  pressure  from  his  chest.  The 
elastic  ribs  came  back  at  once  to  their  former  position,  and 
in  doing  this  created  a  vacuum  in  the  lungs,  into  which 
the  air  rushed  through  the  subject's  larynx,  producing  a 
wheezing  or  gurgling  sound,  just  as  one  does  who  inspires 
violently  when  half  strangled  after  drinking  and  getting 
a  few  drops  of  water  in  the  windpipe. 

In  the  condition  of  mind  which  prevailed  at  that  instant 
I  thought  the  man  was  not  dead!  The  lugubrious  part  of 
this  experience  did  not  end  here.  In  my  hurry  I  put  on  my 
overcoat,  for  a  winter  snow-storm  was  raging,  and  without 
going  into  the  large  room  to  light  the  gas-jet  over  the  door 
of  exit  I  turned  out  my  chandelier  and  found  myself  with- 
out matches  and  in  thick  darkness.     Nothing  was  left  but 

363 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

to  grope  my  way  through  coffins  and  cadavers  and  along 
the  wall  until  I  found  the  door-knob  and  went  out  into  the 
storm.     It  was  a  weird  experience. 

In  these  years  of  strenuous  labor  I  made  one  grave  mis- 
take, and  I  bring  it  out  here  in  the  hope  that  it  may  serve 
as  a  warning  to  other  struggling  and  ambitious  beginners. 
I  worked  too  much  and  took  little  or  no  recreation,  and  did 
not  pay  the  strict  attention  to  sleep  and  diet  which  is  essen- 
tial. I  doubt  if  I  averaged  six  hours  in  bed  out  of  every 
twenty-four  for  the  first  six  years  of  my  residence  in  New 
York.  My  one  dissipation  was  the  theater  on  Saturday 
night,  when  the  college  was  closed.  If  there  was  an 
hour  free  from  some  duty  I  walked  for  exercise  in  the 
beautiful  Central  Park.  It  never  occurred  to  me  to  waste 
time  at  cards  or  billiards  or  other  games  of  amusement, 
and  I  had  never  contracted  the  use  of  tobacco  or  alco- 
hol. 

In  fact,  I  do  not  think  a  physician  should  ever  smoke  or 
drink.  In  1876  I  broke  down  with  a  serious  illness,  which 
was  diagnosed  as  perityphlitis,  but  which  I  now  know  was 
appendicitis.  Dr.  Reginald  Fitz  had  not  opened  the  eyes 
of  the  profession  to  this  disease  with  his  classical  paper,  nor 
had  Dr.  Simon  Baruch,  a  leader  in  medicine,  yet  laid  man- 
kind under  never-ending  obligation  by  his  recognition  of 
and  insistence  upon  the  necessity  of  immediate  operation. 
The  only  operation  in  my  case  was  the  insertion  of  an  ex- 
ploring needle  through  the  abdominal  wall  deeply  into  the 
indurated  mass,  a  procedure  more  dangerous  than  operation, 
and  by  no  means  painless.  No  suppuration  was  discovered, 
and  at  the  end  of  two  weeks  the  abscess  discharged  Into  the 
caecum.  Here  followed  a  slow  convalescence,  a  phlebitis 
with  permanent  occlusion  of  the  left  popliteal  vein,  which 

364 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

accident  I  have  since  observed  on  this,  the  opposite  side  to 
the  appendix,  in  a  number  of  instances.  I  was  incapacitated 
for  nearly  twelve  months  by  reason  of  this  illness,  and  in 
1877  resigned  my  connection  with  Bellevue  Hospital  Medi- 
cal College. 


XXIV 

LONDON — PARIS — BERLIN — VIENNA — DR.  J.  MARION  SIMS — 
MT.  SINAI  HOSPITAL — TEXT-BOOK  ON  SURGERY PRESI- 
DENT NEW  YORK  PATHOLOGICAL  SOCIETY — BLOODLESS 
AMPUTATION  OF  THE  SHOULDER  AND  HIP  JOINTS VICE- 
PRESIDENT  AMERICAN  MEDICAL  ASSOCIATION — LIFE  OF 
FORREST 

I  VISITED  Europe  early  in  1878  in  order  to  study  the 
methods  of  teaching  in  the  great  medical  centers  there.  I 
had  been  dreaming  of  inaugurating  a  new  system  of  medical 
education  in  America,  and  had  my  plans  made  out.  They 
will  be  given  in  that  part  of  this  volume  relating  to  the 
founding  of  the  Polyclinic.  The  year  before  going  abroad 
I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Dr.  J.  Marion  Sims.  He 
had  laid  the  foundation  of  his  great  reputation  in  Mont- 
gomery, Alabama,  where  he  had  known  my  father,  who 
as  a  young  man  was  then  a  member  of  the  state  legislature. 
When  I  arrived  in  Paris  he  was  residing  there,  and  I  called 
to  pay  my  respects  and  was  cordially  received.  The  next 
morning  he  came  to  my  hotel  to  show  me  the  Medical 
Record,  which  he  had  just  received  and  which  contained 
my  "Prize  Essays."  Had  I  been  his  own  son  he  could  not 
have  been  more  appreciative  and  encouraging  in  what  he 
said  to  me  then;  and  from  that  day  to  the  day  this  great 
pioneer  in  surgery  died  I  was  bound  to  him  by  the  ties  of 
an  affectionate  friendship.  He  gave  me  a  most  delightful 
dinner,  at  which  I  met  for  the  first  time  his  youngest  daugh- 

366 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ter,  named  Florence  Nightingale,  for  the  noble  woman  whose 
life  of  unselfish  devotion  to  humanity  naturally  won  for  her 
the  admiration  and  respect  of  Marion  Sims. 

There  happened  to  be  present  at  this  dinner  a  member 
of  the  suite  or  staff  of  the  then  Prince  of  Wales,  Edward. 
He  was  a  renegade  Irishman,  and,  as  usual  with  the  Irish 
who  go  eastward  from  Erin,  he  was  more  English  than  the 
natives  of  Albion.  He  entertained  us  with  what  his  Prince 
did  on  Mondays  and  Tuesdays  and  other  days,  and  how 
he  did  it,  seemingly  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  all  the  rest 
of  us  were  Americans  who  cared  no  more  for  his  princes  and 
dukes  and  lords  and  ladies  than  we  did  for  the  king  of  the 
Cannibal  Islands — in  fact,  not  so  much. 

My  Americanism  may  be  prejudiced  and  narrow,  but  the 
idea  of  preferment  by  inheritance  and  not  by  personal  merit 
and  achievement  has  the  same  effect  on  me  as  a  red  rag  is 
said  to  have  upon  a  certain  male  quadruped.  Moreover, 
at  school  and  later  I  had  learned  something  about  the  way 
the  British  had  treated  our  people  during  the  Revolutionary 
War  and  in  1 8 1 2 :  how  they  had  incited  the  Indians  and 
Tories  to  massacre  and  pillage;  how  at  Fort  Mims,  near 
my  own  home,  some  three  hundred  helpless  women  and 
children  had  been  butchered  without  mercy  as  late  as  18 13, 
while  we  were  at  war  in  protest  against  England's  outrageous 
and  unlawful  impressment  of  oiur  people  in  her  service ;  how, 
encouraging  the  traffic  in  slaves,  her  rulers  had  permitted, 
against  the  protest  of  the  colonists,  the  importation  of 
African  slaves  and  the  establishment  of  slavery  in  America ; 
how  they  had  shocked  mankind  by  blowing  the  bodies  of 
their  condemned  subjects  in  India  from  the  mouths  of 
cannon;  and  how,  for  commercial  reasons,  they  had  forced 
the  opium  trade  upon  protesting,  helpless  China.     All  this 

367 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  a  lot  more,  when  the  rhapsodist  of  Albion  stopped 
long  enough  to  catch  his  breath,  I  recited,  not  giving  him 
a  chance  to  get  a  word  in  edgewise  until  I  had  run  the 
gamut  of  my  indictment  of  the  "mother  country."  Then 
some  one  asked  some  one  else  if  they  had  "ever  seen  a 
rabbit,"  which  was  a  signal  to  change  the  conversation, 
and  peace  was  declared. 

When  I  made  my  dinner-call  upon  the  hostess  and  her 
husband,  I  said:  "Dr.  Sims,  I  fear  I  presumed  too  far  on 
the  hospitality  of  your  home  in  what  I  said  to  your  Irish- 
English  guest;  but  I  lost  control  and  boiled  over."  He 
put  a  hand  on  either  shoulder  as  we  were  standing,  his  hand- 
some face  expressing  not  only  forgiveness  but  approbation 
as  he  replied:  "Wyeth,  I  never  enjoyed  a  raking  over  the 
coals  more  than  the  one  you  gave  that  conceited  fellow. 
Had  it  not  been  at  my  own  table  I  would  have  done  it 
myself." 

When  two  years  later  in  New  York  Dr.  Sims  passed 
through  the  terrible  ordeal  of  a  double  pleuro-pneumonia, 
I  stayed  for  fifteen  nights  by  his  bedside  or  lay  upon  a  sofa 
in  easy  call  of  the  suffering  patient.  As  is  common  with 
doctors,  he  was  a  bad  patient.  I  had  been  directed  by 
Doctors  Loomis  and  Janeway  that  no  mori)hine  should  be 
administered  if  it  could  possibly  be  avoided.  On  one  or 
two  occasions,  when  he  was  suffering  intensely,  a  small 
quantity  had  been  given  with  gratifying  effect  to  the  patient. 
He  insisted  at  one  time  that  I  should  give  him  a  hypodermic. 
I  remonstrated  mildly,  telling  him  his  condition  was  such 
that  it  was  very  dangerous  to  take  it,  and  that  I  had  positive 
instructions  not  to  give  him  any  that  night.  He  raised  such 
a  clamor  that  at  last  I  said:  "Well,  if  you  will  have  it,  you 
must;    but  you  must  relieve  me  of  all  responsibility."     He 

368 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

answered:  "All  right;  I'll  do  it."  Having  anticipated 
such  a  demand,  I  had  already  loaded  a  syringe  with  pure 
water,  and  took  the  bottle  of  Magendie's  solution,  and 
went  through  the  form  of  filling  it  with  the  proper  quan- 
tity. 

I  stuck  the  needle  into  the  patient's  arm,  injected  the  con- 
tents of  the  syringe,  put  everything  away,  went  back  to 
my  sofa,  lay  down,  and  pretended  to  be  asleep.  He  was 
quiet  for  five  or  ten  minutes,  then  became  somewhat  rest- 
less; and  soon  after  I  heard  him  call,  and  walked  around 
to  the  side  of  his  bed.  "How  much  Magendie  did  you  give 
me?"  he  whispered,  "Six  minims,"  I  replied.  Without 
taking  his  eyes  from  mine  he  pointed  his  finger  at  me  and 
said,  quickly,  "Wyeth,  that's  a  lie,  and  you  know  it!"  I 
am  sure  it  was  one  of  those  white  lies  which  will  never  be 
recorded  against  me,  and  I  have  every  reason  to  know,  after 
his  convalescence  and  recovery,  he  had  entirely  forgiven 
me. 

Marion  Sims  died  on  November  13,  1883.  Early  in  1882 
he  had  returned  to  Paris  and  revisited  New  York  in  August, 
1883.  In  the  interval  between  August  and  the  day  of  his 
death  in  November  I  saw  him  frequently.  A  day  or  two 
before  he  died  he  came  into  the  parlor  of  his  residence, 
complaining  that  his  heart  beat  very  fast  whenever  he  went 
up-stairs.  I  remarked  that  he  was  unnecessarily  appre- 
hensive, since  Loomis  and  all  the  diagnosticians  had  ex- 
cluded any  organic  heart  lesion.  He  replied:  "It  doesn't 
matter  what  they  say;  this  heart  trouble  will  kill  me  yet." 
He  had  intended  to  return  to  Europe  on  November  8th, 
and  had  purchased  tickets  for  himself  and  family  on  a 
steamer  sailing  that  day.  He  was,  however,  prevailed  on 
to  remain  over  to  do  an  important  operation,  which  he  did 

369 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

on  November  12  th.  He  returned  home  about  eleven  on 
that  night  and  went  to  his  bed.  It  was  his  custom  to  keep 
pieces  of  white  cardboard  by  his  bedside  and  a  lead-pencil 
convenient,  so  that  at  any  time  in  the  night  when  a  thought 
occurred  to  him  that  he  wished  to  record  he  could  do  so 
without  making  a  light.  He  was  thus  engaged  when,  in 
an  instant,  without  an  expression  of  pain,  his  heart  ceased 
to  beat.  Truly  nature  crowned  his  career  with  the  greatest 
of  all  possible  blessings — a  painless  death. 

In  that  most  fascinating  book.  The  Story  of  My  Life,  Dr. 
Sims  says  that  thirteen  was  always  a  lucky  number  with 
him.  He  was  bom  in  1813;  on  the  13th  of  the  month 
he  graduated  from  college ;  he  left  his  South  Carolina 
home  to  practise  in  Alabama  on  the  13  th ;  arrived  in 
New  York  City  on  the  13th;  and  it  was  on  November 
13,  1883,  at  fifteen  minutes  past  three  o'clock  that  he 
died. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  Marion  Sims  attained  the  highest  po- 
sition ever  achieved  in  the  history  of  our  profession.  His 
reputation  as  a  surgeon  was  so  world-wide  that  in  any 
capital,  in  any  country  within  the  domain  of  civilization, 
he  could  command  at  any  time  a  lucrative  practice.  In 
New  York,  London,  Paris,  Brussels,  Berlin,  Vienna,  Rome, 
Madrid,  Lisbon,  and  St.  Petersburg  he  found  himself  every- 
where sought  after,  not  only  by  the  patients  he  could 
benefit,  but  by  the  leading  members  of  his  own  profes- 
sion, who  were  anxious  to  pay  tribute  to  his  wonderful 
genius. 

From  the  brilliant  triumph  of  that  memorable  clinic  at 
La  Charite  in  1862,  Dr.  Sims  went  forth  to  the  professional 
conquest  of  Europe.  The  journals  of  the  day  heralded  his 
advent,   and  the  gates  of  the  capitals  of  kingdoms  were 

370 


STATUE    OF    DR.    J.    MARION    SIMS,    BRYANT    PARK,    NEW   YORK 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

thrown  open  to  his  coming.  From  place  to  piace  he  jour- 
neyed, heaHng  the  afflicted  and  teaching  others  to  heal. 
Kings  of  the  realm  of  science  vied  with  one  another  to  do 
him  honor,  kings  and  rulers  of  nations  were  proud  to 
confer  upon  him  the  highest  decorations  in  their  power. 
Upon  the  base  of  the  pedestal  which  his  statue  in  Bry- 
ant Park  overlooks,  the  physicians  of  our  time  and  of  all 
time  may  read  with  encouragement  the  epitome  of  his 
life. 

Justly  held  as  the  father  of  gynecology,  his  genius  knew 
none  of  the  limitations  of  specialization,  and  in  my  opinion 
his  most  notable  contribution  to  science  is  his  paper  on 
"The  Careful  Aseptic  Invasion  of  the  Peritoneal  Cavity, 
Not  Only  for  the  Arrest  of  Hemorrhage,  the  Suture  of  In- 
testinal Wounds,  and  the  Cleansing  of  the  Peritoneal  Cavity, 
but  for  all  Intra-peritoneal  Conditions,"  read  before  the 
New  York  Academy  of  Medicine,  October  6,  1881.  It 
marked  the  dawn  of  an  era,  and  was  the  real  starting-point 
in  the  new  surgery  of  the  abdominal  cavity. 

While  in  Paris  in  1878  I  submitted  my  scheme  of  a  com- 
bined three  years'  pregraduate  and  two  years'  postgraduate 
medical  school  to  Dr.  Sims,  and  it  met  with  his  full  approval. 
He  said  if  he  were  younger  he  would  join  with  me  in  the 
effort  to  establish  it. 

There  was  unveiled  in  Bryant  Park,  New  York  City,  in 
1894,  a  statue  in  bronze  of  this  immortal  man.  It  stands 
erect  and  proud,  a  life-like  image  of  the  great  teacher,  the 
spontaneous  gift  from  his  brothers  in  the  profession  through- 
out the  civilized  world,  and  from  many  of  the  unfortunate 
beings  his  genius  and  skill  had  benefited.  In  brief  yet  com- 
prehensive phraseology  the  inscription  tells  the  story  of  his 
career : 

371 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 
J.  MARION   SIMS,  M.D.,  LL.D. 

BORN  IN  SOUTH   CAROLINA,  1813 
DIED  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY  IN  1 883 

SURGEON     AND     PHILANTHROPIST 

FOUNDER   OF  THE    WOMAN's    HOSPITAL   OF   THE 
STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 


HIS     BRILLIANT    ACHIEVEMENTS     CARRIED    THE 

FAME     OF     AMERICAN     SURGERY     THROUGHOUT 

THE  CIVILIZED  WORLD 

IN  RECOGNITION  OF  HIS  SERVICES  IN  THE 
CAUSE  OF  SCIENCE  AND  MANKIND  HE  RECEIVED 
THE  HIGHEST  HONORS  IN  THE  GIFT  OF  HIS 
COUNTRYMEN  AND  DECORATIONS  FROM  THE 
GOVERNMENTS  OF  FRANCE,  PORTUGAL,  SPAIN, 
BELGIUM,  AND  ITALY 

On  the  reverse : 

PRESENTED 

TO  THE   CITY  OF   NEW  YORK 

BY 
HIS    PROFESSIONAL  FRIENDS,  LOVING  PATIENTS, 
AND   MANY  ADMIRERS  THROUGHOUT  THE  WORLD 

Marion  Sims  possessed  a  striking  personality.  Notwith- 
standing his  long  and  bitter  struggle  with  poverty  and  for 
professional  recognition,  and  in  his  early  days  for  health 
and  life  itself,  time  had  dealt  gently  with  his  form  and  face, 
whereon  nature  had  set  in  unmistakable  lines  the  stamp  of 

372 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

greatness.  Although  he  had  rounded  well  the  years  al- 
lotted by  the  Psalmist,  his  step  was  still  quick  and  firm, 
his  carriage  erect,  dignified,  and  graceful.  The  frosts  of  age 
had  not  tinged  the  rich  abundance  of  his  dark-brown  hair, 
which  fell  straight  back  from  off  the  massive  forehead,  for 
the  ever-active  brain  and  the  deep-seated,  searching  eyes  of 
brown  asked  always  for  the  light.  The  brows  were  arched 
and  unusually  heavy  and  prominent;  the  nose  beautifully 
proportioned  and  of  Grecian  type;  the  mouth  well  shaped, 
lips  usually  compressed,  which,  with  the  prominent  chin, 
bespoke  courage  and  firmness  of  purpose.  His  face  was 
oval,  clean-shaven,  and  smooth,  and  the  usual  expression 
was  of  almost  womanly  sweetness;  yet  it  was  quick  to  vary 
in  harmony  with  whatever  emotion  was  predominant. 
Away  from  preoccupation  and  in  the  home  life,  his  ex- 
pression and  actions  were  almost  boyish.  He  never  seemed 
to  have  forgotten  that  he  was  once  a  boy,  and  he  would 
throw  himself  into  a  household  frolic  with  all  the  abandon 
of  his  early  days.  He  was  courageous  to  a  degree;  and,  al- 
though he  rarely  lost  control  of  his  temper,  yet  he  was  at 
times  imperious  and  aggressive.  When  occasion  demanded 
he  was  a  good  fighter,  and  fought  his  enemies  with  right 
good  will;  but  he  was  quick  to  forgive.  As  was  said  of 
him  by  a  gifted  orator,  he  possessed  qualities  ideal  in  the 
make-up  of  a  truly  great  surgeon — "the  brain  of  an  Apollo, 
the  heart  of  a  lion,  the  eye  of  an  eagle,  and  the  hand  of  a 
woman." 

If  generosity  be  a  fault,  it  was  his  besetting  sin,  and  that 
was  all  the  sin  of  which  I  deemed  him  capable. 

Toward  the  higher  and  purer  civilization  the  progress  of 
man  is  slow.  As  yet  the  shadows  of  barbarism  linger  about 
him,    His  heroes  are  the  destroyers,  the  Cassars  and  Na- 

373 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

poleons,  who  covered  the  earth  with  ruin  and  buried  be- 
neath it  countless  hves  sacrificed  upon  the  altar  of  personal 
ambition.  But  the  time  must  come  when  those  whose 
genius  and  works  give  life  and  health  and  happiness  to  the 
world  will  be  first  in  the  heart  of  man.  In  this  purer  tem- 
ple of  fame,  along  with  such  names  as  Jenner,  Ephraim 
McDowell,  Morton,  Lister,  Pasteur,  Walter  Reed,  Koch, 
Gorgas,  Lazear,  and  Ricketts,  generations  yet  unborn  shall 
read  the  name  of  Marion  Sims. 

I  had  received  in  1877  an  appointment  as  visiting  sur- 
geon to  St.  Elizabeth's  Hospital,  a  small  institution  well 
managed  by  a  society  of  Sisters  of  Charity,  and  in  1882  I 
was  made  visiting  surgeon  to  Mt.  Sinai  Hospital,  then  on 
Lexington  Avenue  between  Sixty-sixth  and  Sixty-seventh 
streets,  one  of  the  largest,  best-managed,  and  most  useful 
of  the  many  great  philanthropies  of  New  York  City.  The 
directors  were  all  Hebrews,  and,  although  liberal  and  non- 
sectarian  as  to  those  admitted,  naturally  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  patients  were  Jews,  and  many  of  these  were 
the  poorest  of  poor  immigrants  newly  arrived  from  Russia, 
Poland,  and  Germany. 

My  colleague  at  the  Polyclinic,  Dr.  A.  G.  Gerster — a 
brilliant,  ambitious,  and  exceedingly  competent  lecturer 
and  surgeon — and  I  divided  the  surgical  service  at  Mt. 
Sinai,  and  by  our  united  efforts  added  very  much  to  the 
attractiveness  of  the  clinics.  During  our  first  term  a  salary 
was  paid  to  the  house  surgeon,  as  it  was  difficult  to  induce 
the  better  class  of  young  men  to  serve  in  this  capacity  for 
the  full  term.  We  took  our  Polyclinic  students  there  in 
great  numbers,  built  up  a  large  clientele,  and  the  next  year 
there  were  a  half-dozen  eager  applicants  for  every  vacancy 
on  the  interne  staff.     The  number  of  visitors  became  so 

374 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

large  that  the  directors  gave  us  a  new  and  extra  large 
operating-room  and  met  all  oiir  demands  with  their  wonted 
liberality. 

Fully  one-half  of  these  patients  spoke  the  German  lan- 
guage, and  I  found  the  four  years  I  had  devoted  to  this  great 
language  with  a  tutor  and  boarding  with  a  family  of  edu- 
cated Germans  had  not  been  spent  in  vain.  A  large  pro- 
portion of  the  Jews  from  Poland  and  Russia  spoke  a  mixed 
German,  something  of  which  I  "picked  up."  In  a  suit  for 
damages  for  injury  in  an  elevator  accident  I  was  sub- 
poenaed, as  I  had  treated  the  plaintiff  in  the  hospital.  The 
jury  could  not  understand  his  very  broken  English.  His 
German  proved  just  as  unsatisfactory;  for  there  were  two 
intelligent  native  Germans  on  the  jury  who  told  the  judge 
they  could  not  understand  him.  I  asked  permission  to 
speak  to  him,  asked  him  to  describe  the  accident  in  the 
mixed  Mt.  Sinai  patois,  which  he  did.  The  judge  then  had 
me  sworn  in  as  interpreter,  and  I  translated  his  testimony 
to  the  jury  in  English  and  German,  much  to  the  joy  of  the 
plaintiff,  for  he  received  a  verdict.  I  had  great  sympathy 
with  these  unfortunate  people,  for  they  were  submissive, 
patient,  and  very  grateful,  and,  as  far  as  I  could  judge, 
law-abiding. 

In  all  my  sixteen  years'  service  in  this  hospital  I  recall 
but  one  outlaw,  and  my  experience  with  him  was  interest- 
ing enough  to  justify  narration.  He  came  into  the  service 
with  a  fistulous  opening  in  the  abdominal  wall,  which  he 
stated  had  been  caused  by  falling  against  a  sharp  spike. 
During  his  convalescence  the  patient  next  to  him  happened 
to  be  reading  the  Police  Gazette,  in  which  there  was  a  picture 
of  a  burglar  who  had  escaped  from  a  prison  hospital,  where 
he  was  being  treated  for  a  bullet-shot  wound  received  while 

375 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

robbing  a  silk-store.  Beneath  the  photograph  was  printed, 
"Sheeny  Mike,  the  Great  Silk  Burglar."  The  patient  look- 
ed over  at  his  nearest  neighbor,  handed  him  the  Gazette,  and 
said,  "This  fellow  looks  like  you."  The  answer  was,  "Yes, 
there  is  some  resemblance,"  and  he  quietly  returned  the 
paper.  In  a  few  minutes  he  sauntered  to  the  bath-room  in 
the  rear  of  the  ward,  from  which  a  back  stairway  led  to 
the  street,  and  that  was  the  last  the  hospital  knew  of 
"Sheeny  Mike."  Meanwhile  the  newspapers  mentioned 
the  fact  that  he  had  escaped,  and  stated  that  a  reward  of 
five  thousand  dollars  was  offered  for  his  apprehension. 

A  month  or  two  later  I  happened  one  afternoon  to  be  in 
a  cross-town  car  going  from  the  Desbrosses  Street  Ferry  to 
the  Bowery,  when  Mike,  well-dressed,  as  is  usual  with 
gentlemen  of  leisure,  boarded  the  car,  recognized  and  took 
his  seat  by  me,  and  we  conversed  during  a  ride  of  several 
blocks  about  his  health  and  the  operation  at  the  hospital 
and  the  weather,  but  never  a  word  about  the  Boston  silk 
business  or  the  five  thousand  dollars'  reward.  Had  he  run 
away  when  he  saw  me  I  possibly  might  have  followed  him 
and  caused  his  arrest ;  but  when  he  trusted  me  so  implicitly 
I  could  not  be  unmindful  of  his  confidence.  He  was  ar- 
rested later  in  Jacksonville,  Florida,  where,  according  to 
the  newspapers,  he  was  running  an  extensive  merchandise 
business,  and,  I  think,  died  in  the  penitentiary. 

I  had  some  interesting  experiences  with  several  patients 
who  were  beyond  the  law,  and  recall  two  who  were  arrested 
for  complicity  in  the  great  Northampton  bank  robbery. 
One  of  these  was  found  guilty,  and  made  a  daring  escape 
from  prison. 

With  the  success  of  the  Polyclinic,  and  the  intimate  per- 
sonal acquaintance  it  brought  with  practising  physicians  from 

376 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

all  parts  of  the  country,  together  with  the  practical  experience 
gained  from  the  extensive  surgical  service  at  Mt.  Sinai  and 
elsewhere,  my  private  practice  grew  more  and  more  re- 
munerative. I  now  gave  up  all  medical  cases  and  confined 
my  work  entirely  to  the  practice  and  teaching  of  surgery. 
In  1884  an  agent  of  the  pubHshing  firm  of  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 
called  upon  me  with  a  proposition  to  write  a  text-book  on 
surgery  for  that  firm;  but  we  failed  to  agree  on  terms.  I 
Vv^as  very  desirous  of  writing  such  a  book,  for  much  of  the 
work  I  had  already  done  was  directly  in  that  line.  I  insisted 
on  a  new  style  of  illustration  in  colors  which  was  more  than 
ordinarily  expensive,  and  told  the  iVppletons  it  was  not 
worth  while  to  bring  out  a  new  book  unless  it  could  be  made 
more  attractive  than  any  other  book  on  surgery. 

The  cost  was  thought  to  be  too  great,  and  for  the  time 
being  the  matter  rested  there  as  far  as  they  were  concerned; 
but  I  went  on  with  the  surgery  without  saying  a  word  to 
any  one,  for  I  felt  that  I  would  find  a  publisher.  The  next 
fall  the  Appleton  agent  came  back  and  said,  "Well,  what 
about  the  surgery?"  I  repHed,  "Nothing,  unless  your  firm 
will  give  me  carte  blancJie  on  illustrations,"  and,  to  my  delight, 
he  said:  "All  right;  I  am  authorized  to  close  the  contract 
now.  Can  you  do  it  in  a  year?"  I  said,  "In  less  time,  if 
you  are  in  a  hurry."  We  signed  the  contract,  and  then  I 
told  him  the  book  was  written,  and  I  could  give  him  the 
manuscript  as  fast  as  he  wanted  it.  As  I  had  anticipated, 
the  beautiful  illustrations  in  three  colors,  which  had  never 
before  been  used  in  a  text-book  on  this  subject,  proved  very 
attractive.  I  was  to  be  at  no  expense  and  to  receive  ten 
per  cent,  of  the  gross  sales,  which  for  the  various  editions 
amounted  to  between  two  and  three  himdred  thousand 
dollars. 

25  377 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  actual  cash  profits  of  authorship,  especially  in  scien- 
tific books,  are  rarely  large;  but  the  enhancement  of  pro- 
fessional reputation  is  always  a  valuable  asset,  more  gratify- 
ing than  the  mere  accumulation  of  money;  and  a  success- 
ful book  always  brings  this  reward.  The  large  sale  of  this 
volume,  together  with  the  prize  essays,  widely  distributed 
through  the  American  Medical  Association,  widened  the 
circle  of  personal  as  well  as  professional  acquaintanceship 
and  added  to  my  practice.  I  had  been,  however,  in  1885, 
and  again  in  1886,  elected  to  the  presidency  of  the  New  York 
Pathological  Society,  and  it  was  about  this  period  that  the 
professorship  of  surgery  in  the  great  medical  college  at  New 
Orleans,  which  Dr.  T.  G.  Richardson  had  so  long  and  suc- 
cessfully held,  was  offered  to  me.  It  was  a  great  temptation 
to  go  "back  home,"  but  my  heart  was  in  the  w^ork  of  build- 
ing up  the  Polyclinic  as  a  great  postgraduate  medical  school. 

I  wish  I  could  impress  upon  every  young  member  of  our 
profession  the  importance  of  pathology,  for  it  is  the  founda- 
tion of  a  successful  career  and  practice.  A  true  conception 
of  this  subject  combines  the  laboratory  with  the  post- 
mortem-room. As  I  look  back  now  I  realize  that  prac- 
tically every  active  member  of  this  society  at  the  time  of 
which  I  write  was  then  or  became  later  famous  in  medicine. 
There  was  E.  G.  Janeway  (I  nicknamed  him  "ejus  generis"), 
the  indefatigable  worker,  close  observer,  conscientiously  study- 
ing his  cases,  and,  when  death  occurred,  reaping  the  full 
benefit  of  his  successes  or  failures  in  diagnosis  and  treat- 
ment by  a  minute  examination  of  the  organs  involved. 
He  became  one  of  the  greatest  diagnosticians  in  medicine 
the  profession  has  ever  known.  To  every  beginner  in  medi- 
cine asking,  "How  may  I  succeed?"  I  would  say,  "Study 
the  career  of  Edward  G.  Janeway  and  try  to  follow  it." 

378 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

That  I  should  admire  and  respect  him  was  inevitable  from 
our  close  association;  and  for  the  watchful,  brotherly  care 
he  gave  me  through  the  long  and  weary  months  of  a  pain- 
ful and  desperate  illness  I  owe  the  grateful  tribute  of  friend- 
ship. Abraham  Jacobi,  the  Nestor  of  American  Medicine, 
as  I  write  this  page,  full  of  years  and  of  honors  well  deserved, 
then  as  now  and  for  ever  famous,  was  always  in  attendance. 
And  there,  too,  was  his  gifted  wife,  Dr.  Mary  Putnam  Jacobi, 
whose  knowledge  of  pathology  was  so  thorough,  whose  range 
of  the  literature  was  so  wide,  and  whose  criticism  was  so 
keen,  fearless,  and  just  that  in  our  discussions  we  felt  it 
prudent  to  shun  the  field  of  speculation  and  to  walk  strictly 
in  the  path  of  demonstrated  facts.  Of  this  group  also  was 
my  fellow-student  at  college  and  soon  thereafter  my  teach- 
er in  advanced  pathology,  William  H.  Welch,  whose  tran- 
scendent genius  for  research  has  made  him  facile  princeps 
among  American  pathologists.  When  my  increasing  labors 
pressed  me  so  for  time  that  I  could  no  longer  work  in  his 
laboratory,  I  equipped  my  own  in  my  office,  and  two  eve- 
nings of  each  week  this  enthusiastic  and  generous  friend  came 
to  help  me  in  the  efforts  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  latest 
developments  in  the  science  in  which  he  was  master.  Louis 
Elsberg  and  John  H.  Ripley,  both  justly  renowned,  were 
among  this  group,  as  was  L.  Emmet  Holt,  the  eminent 
pediatrist  of  the  present  date. 

Soon  after  my  return  from  Europe  in  1878  the  frightful 
epidemic  of  yellow  fever  broke  out  in  Memphis,  causing 
panic  and  flight  for  all  who  could  escape,  and  anxiety,  suf- 
fering, or  death  for  those  who  could  not  run  away,  or  who, 
like  the  doctors  of  that  city,  remained  at  their  posts.  Think- 
ing it  our  duty  to  offer  dur  services  to  our  own  afflicted 
people,  my  old  Confederate  comrade.  Dr.  WiUiam  M.  Polk, 

379 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  I  telegraphed  to  Dr.  John  H.  Erskine  that  we  would  go 
to  Memphis  if  he  thought  we  could  be  made  useful.  To  our 
great  relief,  Dr.  Erskine,  who  had  been  a  medical  director 
in  the  Army  of  Tennessee,  replied:  "Don't  come.  You 
would  be  down  with  fever  in  two  weeks,  and  would  add  to 
our  anxieties."     He  died  of  the  fever  in  this  epidemic. 


XXV 

THE    TENNESSEE     &    COOSA — HOW    I     FINANCED    A   RAILROAD 

AND  SAVED  A  FORTUNE  FOR  A  FRIEND REVISIT  MY  ALMA 

MATER — WRITE  THE  LIFE  OF  FORREST 

There  is  an  old  adage  that  a  man  who  is  "Jack  of  all 
trades  is  good  at  none."  I  had  been  brought  up  with  the 
idea  that  a  boy  and  man  should  learn  something  of  any  and 
every  trade,  if  it  were  practicable,  and  by  the  time  I  went 
to  college  I  was  fairly  expert  with  the  tools  and  implements, 
and  at  home  with  the  handy  experiences  which  were  part 
of  the  life  of  a  pioneer  agricultural  community.  When  in 
1874  I  tacked  my  sign  to  the  door  of  226  Fifth  Avenue  as 
a  surgeon  of  the  metropolis,  in  the  center  of  rich  and  fash- 
ionable New  York  City  (for  the  old  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  at 
Twenty-third  and  Twenty-fourth  streets  and  Broadway,  and 
the  famous  Hotel  Brunswick,  at  Twenty-sixth  Street  and 
Fifth  Avenue,  were  just  across  the  street  from  my  office), 
I  had  hoped  and  believed  that  henceforth  until  I  could  sit 
down  quietly  as  an  old  man  and  write  my  "Occupations  of 
a  Retired  Life"  my  lines  were  cast  for  naught  but  surgery. 
I  had  been  Jack  of  many  trades,  and  now  I  was  trying  to 
be  good  at  least  at  one.  I  had  been  farmer  and  woodsman, 
soldier  for  three  years,  superintendent  of  a  large  cotton 
plantation,  cattle-buyer,  medical  student  for  two  years,  and 
pilot  for  the  same  length  of  time  on  a  steamboat  in  the 
White  River  country  of  Arkansas,  contracted  for  and  built 

381 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

public  buildings  for  Woodruff  County  in  that  state,  specu- 
lated in  lands,  ran  a  telegraph  office  as  operator,  etc.,  and 
now  it  came  about  that  I  had  to  interrupt  the  even  tenor 
of  my  professional  career  to  finance  and  build  a  railroad. 
Like  much  more  of  what  has  been  written  in  these  pages, 
it  reads  like  romance,  yet  I  have  learned  that  truth  is 
stranger  than  fiction,  and  this  is  the  plain  story  of  the 
Tennessee  &  Coosa  Railroad. 

My  father  had  foiinded  Gimtersville,  the  county-seat  of 
Marshall  County,  Alabama,  in  1848.  He  had  dreamed  of 
building  up  there,  at  the  south  bend  of  the  Tennessee,  a 
great  commercial  community.  As  part  of  his  plan  while  a 
member  of  the  state  legislatiu-e  he  had  secured  the  charter 
of  a  railroad  to  connect  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Tennessee 
and  Coosa  rivers,  and  ultimately  to  make  it  a  link  in  a  great 
through  railroad  transit  line.  It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to 
tell  here  how  very  near  he  came  to  the  realization  of  his 
dream.  When  in  later  years  the  great  through  system  from 
Memphis,  via  Atlanta,  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean  at  Charleston 
and  Savannah  was  being  projected  my  father  brought  his 
influence  to  bear  to  have  that  railroad  run  from  Deca- 
tur to  Guntersville,  and  thence  direct  to  Atlanta,  cutting 
Chattanooga  entirely  out.  The  conflict  of  interests  between 
the  two  routes  became  so  sharp  that  at  last  the  governors 
of  the  five  states  through  which  the  road  was  surveyed — 
Tennessee,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Georgia,  and  South  Caro- 
lina— appointed  each  three  commissioners  to  determine  the 
route.  When  the  fifteen  commissioners  met  they  elected 
as  chairman  Mr.  Sam  Tate,  of  Memphis.  Seven  voted  for 
the  Guntersville  and  seven  for  the  Chattanooga  route,  and 
Sam  Tate's  single  vote  decided  in  favor  of  Chattanooga  and 
made  it  the  great  railroad  center  of  the  middle  South.     Had 

382 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

he  voted  the  other  way  our  family  would  have  been  one  of 
the  wealthiest  in  our  state. 

Notwithstanding  this  set-back,  work  on  the  Tennessee  & 
Coosa  Railroad,  thirty-six  miles  in  length,  from  Gunters- 
ville  to  Gadsden,  had  been  pushed,  and  when  it  was  stopped 
in  1 86 1  on  account  of  the  Civil  War  it  was  well  on  to  com- 
pletion. The  chief  contractor  and  builder  of  this  road  was 
Mr.  Hugh  Carlisle,  a  British  subject  residing  in  Alabama, 
to  whom  my  eldest  sister  had  been  married  in  1861.  In 
settlement  with  the  company  this  gentleman  had  received 
as  part  payment  a  block  of  stock,  which  with  other  purchases 
gave  him  control  and  ultimately  entire  ownership  of  this 
franchise  and  property.  This  stock  represented  not  only 
the  very  considerable  amount  of  money  involved  in  construc- 
tion, but  a  claim  to  a  large  and  valuable  grant  of  public 
lands  contiguous  to  the  road-bed,  which  were,  however, 
subject  to  litigation  for  forfeiture.  In  the  effort  to  complete 
the  work  he  had  begun  the  owner  became  financially  em- 
barrassed. The  four  years'  war  and  the  ten  years  of  plunder 
by  the  reconstruction  carpet-bag  government  after  peace 
was  declared  had  paralyzed  all  public  enterprises,  and  in 
this  period  so  much  of  the  work  had  been  destroyed  by  the 
elements  that  it  was  almost  like  building  the  road  anew. 
Before  he  was  half-way  through,  his  means  had  been  ex- 
hausted, and  in  a  time  of  money  stringency  and  panic  he 
was  unable  to  borrow  the  amount  needed  to  save  him  from 
utter  financial  rmn.  In  his  extremity  he  and  my  sister 
turned  to  me  as  their  last  hope.  With  their  distressing 
letter  came  a  copy  of  the  sheriff's  printed  notice  of  sale 
under  judgment,  and  I  had  to  act  quickly,  for  I  could  not 
sit  still  and  see  those  so  near  and  dear  to  me  lose  all  they 
possessed  without  an  effort  to  save  them. 

383 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Unfortunately,  I  did  not  have  the  money  required,  and 
I  knew  only  one  human  being  to  whom  I  could  turn  for 
help.  I  went  at  once  to  the  late  David  J.  Garth,  one  of  the 
noblest  of  men,  who,  successful  in  affairs,  had  then  retired 
from  business.  I  had  had  the  great  good  fortune  to  be  em- 
ployed as  his  family  physician  soon  after  I  came  to  New 
York,  and  we  had  already  formed  a  strong  and  lasting  friend- 
ship. I  laid  the  case  before  him,  and  asked  him  to  lend  me 
the  money  needed.  It  was  to  me  then  a  very  large  sum. 
When  he  asked  me  what  collateral  I  had  to  offer,  I  told  him 
none  but  his  faith  in  my  integrity  and  ability.  To  this 
astonishing  proposition  he  smilingly  replied,  ' '  I  reckon  you'll 
have  to  have  it."  That  afternoon,  with  a  package  of  bonds 
under  his  arm,  he  and  I  presented  ourselves  to  Mr.  Case, 
cashier  of  the  Second  National  Bank,  then  located  at 
Twenty-third  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue,  and  I  took  the  train 
that  night  for  Alabama  with  a  certified  check  to  my  order. 

For  the  first  and,  I  may  add,  for  the  last  time  in  my 
life,  with  but  one  exception,  I  was  now  in  debt,  and  the  situa- 
tion was  not  agreeable.  My  father  had  impressed  me  early 
with  the  importance  of  owing  no  man.  On  one  occasion, 
having  effected  an  arrangement  with  the  keeper  of  a  candy- 
shop,  whereby  when  temporarily  short  of  cash  I  could 
satisfy  a  craving  for  sweets  and  pay  the  bill  at  my  con- 
venience, I  offered  father  a  share.  As  he  placed  it  in  his 
mouth  he  asked  me  how  much  I  had  paid  for  it,  and  when 
I  replied  I  had  bought  it  on  credit  he  spat  it  out,  handed 
me  back  the  remainder,  and,  after  reproving  me  quite 
severely  for  such  reprehensible  conduct  he  gave  me  the 
amount  to  cancel  my  indebtedness;  and  from  that  day  to 
this,  with  the  exception  of  borrowing  this  money  to  save  a 
friend,  I  have  owed  no  man. 

384 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

When  I  arrived  at  Attalla,  and  went  carefully  into  the 
matter  of  the  impending  sale,  I  became  convinced  that  cer- 
tain very  radical  changes  were  essential,  and,  determining 
upon  these,  I  made  it  a  sine  qua  non  that  all  the  stock  and 
complete  control  of  the  entire  property  should  be  legally 
turned  over  to  me  by  transfer  on  the  company's  books. 
This  being  done,  I  satisfied  the  judgment  and  became  the 
owner  of  a  railroad.  I  had  heard  the  story  of  the  man 
who  took  an  elephant  as  security  for  a  loan,  and  who  ever 
after  had  a  great  deal  more  of  elephant  than  he  wanted. 
During  many  a  wakeful  hour  for  the  next  twelvemonth  I 
gave  that  man  my  sympathy.  I  went  at  once  to  my  dear 
father,  who  was  still  president  of  this  road,  and  said:  "This 
failure  of  the  old  company  as  at  present  organized  has 
naturally  caused  a  want  of  confidence  in  its  ability  to  finance 
and  build  the  railroad.  A  change  is  necessary.  I  want 
you  to  resign  and  let  me  elect  a  new  board,  to  include  some 
New  York  capitalists  and  men  of  influence  in  the  place 
where  we  will  have  to  go  for  money." 

He  agreed  with  me  heartily,  called  a  meeting,  resigned, 
and  the  new  board  v/ent  into  office  at  once.  One  year  and 
two  months  thereafter,  in  an  office  in  Wall  Street,  after 
paying  off  every  indebtedness  and  returning  to  my  good 
friend  the  loan  at  the  Second  National  Bank,  I  turned  over 
all  the  remainder  to  Mr.  Carlisle.  In  the  final  settlement 
with  the  purchaser,  Major  John  W.  Thomas,  President  of 
the  Nashville,  Chattanooga  &  St.  Louis  Railway  Co.,  I  se- 
cured the  transfer  of  the  land  claim  to  the  former  owner^ 
my  sister's  husband,  the  legality  of  vv^hose  title  was  ulti- 
mately confirmed  by  the  Supreme  Coiirt  of  the  United 
States.  The  property  (not  including  the  railroad  and  its 
franchise)  which  was  thus  saved  is  now  valued  at,  and  is 

385 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

well  worth,  a  million  dollars.  The  happiness  it  gave  me  to 
carry  this  transaction  to  a  satisfactory  issue  more  than  com- 
pensated for  the  worry  and  anxiety  and  loss  of  time  from 
my  professional  work  which  it  involved,  for  all  of  which  I 
received  no  direct  compensation. 

It  is  said  that  revenge  is  sweet  and  that  time  will  bring 
the  opportunity  to  all  who  wait.  Many  years  after  this 
incident  was  closed  my  dear  old  friend  Mr.  Garth  became 
in  his  turn  temporarily  embarrassed  in  a  large  real-estate 
deal  in  Westchester  County.  He  naturally  came  to  borrow 
from  me,  and  this  time  I  smiled  and  said,  "I  reckon  you'll 
have  to  have  it."  He  lived  to  be  very  nearly  ninety  years 
old,  and  at  his  death,  in  191 2,  left  an  ample  fortune.  As  a 
token  of  his  love  for  me  he  added  a  codicil  to  his  will  in 
favor  of  the  Polyclinic  Hospital. 

In  1890  I  attended  the  International  Surgical  Congress 
in  Berlin,  and  incidentally  revisited  Carlsbad,  the  most 
attractive  watering-place  and  "cure"  I  have  ever  seen. 
I  recall  little  of  the  congress  as  far  as  its  scientific  work 
was  concerned,  but  can  never  forget  an  incident  in  the 
vast  dining-hall,  where  between  five  hundred  and  a  thou- 
sand surgeons  were  feasting.  Professors  W.  W.  Keen, 
John  B.  Roberts,  Robert  F.  Weir,  and  I  were  seated  together 
at  one  of  the  large  tables,  our  neighbors  being  seemingly 
from  all  the  other  nations  of  the  civilized  world.  As  the 
bands  played  the  various  national  airs  the  representatives 
of  the  coiuitry  in  evidence  would,  as  soon  as  the  music 
ceased,  show  their  patriotic  approval  by  hand-clapping  or 
bravos  or  a  series  of  huzzas,  none  of  which  seemed  to  me 
sufficiently  enthusiastic  or  demonstrative.  Keen  was  nat- 
urally anxious  with  the  rest  of  our  four  to  get  ahead  of  our 

386 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

foreign  brethren,  and  we  agreed  that  when  the  "Star- 
spangled  Banner"  was  rendered,  as  the  last  strain  floated 
away  in  the  air  we  would  stand  in  our  chairs  and  give  them 
the  rebel  yell.  Keen  and  Weir  had  both  served  in  the 
Union  army  during  the  War,  and  heard  that  indescribable 
wild  Comanche  chorus  which  was  the  vocal  part  of  the 
Southern  onslaught,  and  which,  like 

The  war-note  of  Lochiel,  which  Albyn's  hills 
Have  heard,  and  heard,  too,  have  her  Saxon  foes, 

fitted  in  effectively  with  the  rolling  kettle-drum  sound  of 
thousands  of  rifles  at  work,  and  with  the  accompaniment  of 
the  short,  explosive  booms  of  artillery.  Roberts,  who  would 
have  heard  it  in  war-times  had  he  been  old  enough,  said  he 
would  follow.  When  the  moment  came  the  inspiring  music 
had  caught  the  audience  and  they  were  ripe  for  our  demon- 
stration, for  when  we  stood  up  so  conspicuously  in  our 
chairs,  wildly  waving  our  napkins  and  yelling  that  awful 
yell,  oiu"  neighbors  climbed  into  theirs,  took  up  the  chorus, 
and  the  whole  throng  went  mad  about  it  and  wouldn't  stop 
until  the  "Star-spangled  Banner"  and  the  rebel  yell  had 
received  three  encores.  I  felt  as  if  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy had  again  saved  the  Union. 

In  1890  I  made  public  my  operations  for  the  "Bloodless 
Amputation  at  the  Hip-joint,"  which  created  quite  a  stir 
in  the  surgical  world.  Nine  years  before  the  author  of  the 
principal  text-book  in  use  in  American  colleges  said  that 
amputation  at  the  hip  was  "properly  regarded  as  the  great- 
est operation  in  stu-gery."  The  death-rate  in  the  Civil  War 
was  ninety-three  per  cent.,  and  in  civil  practice  after  the 
War  from  forty  to  fifty  of  every  hundred  died.  The  method 
introduced  by  me,  and  generally  accepted  by  surgeons  the 

387 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

world  over,  has  reduced  the  mortality  to  between  six  and 
eight  per  cent.  I  received  a  number  of  invitations  to  de- 
monstrate the  operation  publicly,  and  this  was  done  in  the 
amphitheater  of  the  Jefferson  Medical  College  at  Phila- 
delphia in  1 89 1,  by  Professor  W.  W.  Keen  and  myself,  be- 
fore the  largest  gathering  I  had  ever  seen  at  a  surgical  clinic. 
In  reporting  this  case  this  eminent  surgeon  said,  "It  was 
reserved  for  an  American  surgeon  to  devise  what  is  un- 
doubtedly the  best  method,  and,  in  fact,  that  which  I  think 
we  can  now  call  the  only  method  of  hemostasis  in  amputa- 
tion at  the  hip- joint." 

In  the  Annals  of  Surgery  for  September,  1895,  Dr.  John 
F.  Erdmann  reports  eighteen  hip-joint  amputations  done 
in  seven  of  the  leading  hospitals  in  New  York  City  within 
ten  years.  Seven  of  these  were  done  by  my  method,  and 
all  recovered,  while  the  death-rate  in  the  remaining  cases 
by  the  other  method  was  over  seventy- two  per  cent.  My 
"Bloodless  Amputation  at  the  Shoulder- joint "  had  been 
made  public  in  1889.  In  that  year  a  colored  woman  came 
to  my  clinic,  her  trouble  being  a  malignant  growth  (sarcoma) 
of  the  shoulder,  requiring  amputation  at  this  joint.  The 
tumor  was  situated  so  near  the  joint  that  I  was  afraid  she 
would  bleed  to  death  or  run  great  risk  if  I  followed  any  of 
the  older  methods  of  amputation.  It  then  occurred  to  me 
that  I  could  use  the  cumulative  pressure  of  a  section  of 
elastic  rubber  tubing  over  the  shoulder-blade  and  collar- 
bone, and  occlude  all  the  vessels  going  to  and  from  the  arm. 
As  the  shoulder-joint  would  represent  the  end  of  a  truncated 
cone,  when  the  bone  was  removed  and  the  arm  amputated, 
the  tube,  if  not  held  in  place,  would  roll  off  in  the  direction 
of  least  resistance.  I  then  thought  of  transfixion  with  the 
two  mattress-needles  to  hold  it  in  place.     The   arm  was 

3S8 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

emptied  of  blood  by  the  Esmarch  bandage,  and,  with  the 
above  method  carried  out,  the  operation  was  practically 
bloodless,  and  the  patient  recovered.  While  doing  this  the 
idea  of  disarticulation  at  the  hip  came  into  my  mind,  and 
in  a  few  months  an  Episcopal  minister  from  Alabama  came 
to  me  with  a  sarcoma  of  the  thigh,  requiring  amputation  at 
the  hip,  and  the  method  worked  perfectly. 

This  discovery  spread  my  reputation  more  than  anything 
else  I  had  done,  and  yet  in  my  opinion  the  good  it  has  ac- 
complished and  will  accomplish  in  the  years  to  come  does 
not  compare  v,-:th  the  ligation  of  the  external  carotid  artery, 
an  operation  which  my  prize  essays  established  in  1878. 
I  felt  much  gratification  in  the  fact  that  these  innovations 
were  made  from  the  Pol^xlinic.  The  operation  was  made 
public  at  the  meeting  of  the  American  Medical  Association 
in  Nashville  in  1890,  and  in  October  of  that  3^ear  I  made  the 
demonstration  in  the  amphitheater  in  which  I  heard  my 
first  lecture  as  a  medical  student.  I  went  thither  to  deliver 
by  invitation  an  address  on  medical  education  before  the 
Mississippi  Valley  Medical  Association,  which  met  that 
year  in  Louisville.  I  had  not  visited  my  ahna  mater  since 
my  graduation,  twenty-one  years  before,  and  the  reception 
given  me  in  this  hospitable  city  was  more  than  I  had  hoped 
for.  I  met  on  the  occasion  of  this  visit  the  renowned  Colonel 
Henry  Watterson,  editor  of  the  Courier  Jotirnal,  one  of  the 
most  entertaining  and  delightful  gentlemen  it  has  ever  been 
my  good  fortune  to  know.  My  old  teacher,  Professor  David 
Yandell,  held  a  reception  at  his  beautiful  residence.  The 
crowd  soon  filled  the  house  and  overflow^ed  into  a  large 
marquee  in  the  grounds.  I  had  not  seen  the  host  since  I 
was  graduated  in  1869,  and  several  fellow-alumni  suggested 
that  we  play  a  trick  on  the  dear  old  surgeon,  who,  we  might 

389 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

have  known,  "was  not  born  in  the  night-time."  I  took  my 
place  in  the  Hne  filing  up  to  shake  hands,  and  if  necessary 
be  introduced,  the  others  in  the  conspiracy  standing  near 
enough  to  hear  our  conversation.  I  did  not  give  him  my 
name  as  I  took  his  hand,  and  he  said,  "You  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  me,"  to  which  I  replied,  "Professor,  I  am  Jim 
Smith,  one  of  your  old  pupils  from  Breathitt  County"  (said 
to  be  the  county  in  Kentucky  where  every  one  makes  and 
executes  his  own  law).  But  we  were  hoist  on  our  own 
petard,  for  in  an  instant  his  handsome  face  lit  up  as  he  put 
his  arms  around  me  and  said,  loud  enough  to  shock  every- 
body about  us:  "No,  you're  not.     By  God,  you're  John!" 

Among  the  classmates  who  laughed  loudest  at  the  failure 
of  our  ruse  was  Dr.  Sam  Manly,  and  I  recalled  to  those  pres- 
ent an  incident  which  occurred  in  1869,  in  which  he  had 
deservedly  met  discomfiture.  We  were  calling  on  the  pro- 
fessors to  pay  our  respects  before  leaving  for  our  homes. 
The  teacher  in  physiology,  one  of  the  most  scholarly  and 
dignified  members  of  the  faculty,  was  so  very  deaf  he  could 
not  hear  without  using  a  trumpet — and  this  he  did  not 
adjust  for  the  ordinary  exchange  of  civilities,  such  as  saying 
"good-by."  As  we  stood  around  the  sideboard  (for  this 
was  in  Kentucky),  glass  in  hand  to  drink  his  health,  Sam, 
intending  to  excite  our  mirth  and  embarrass  us  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  dear  old  deaf  professor,  and  without  any  thought 
of  disrespect,  said,  "Here's  at  you,  you  bald-headed  old 
vacuum!"  Before  we  could  even  smile  at  his  impertinence, 
the  polite  host  replied,  bowing  and  touching  Sam's  glass 
with  his,  "The  same  to  you,  sir,  the  same  to  you!" 

The  Century  Magazine  published  in  1891  the  narrative  of 
my  life  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  and  it  stirred  up  a  hornet's  nest 
among  the  bloody-shirt  politicians,  who  had  no  idea  of  ad- 

390 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

mitting  that  there  was  a  moral  to  the  legend  of  the  shield 
which  had  two  sides.  The  article  was  written  as  an  his- 
torical contribution  in  the  spirit  of  reconciliation,  and  it 
contained  nothing  that  I  did  not  know  to  be  true  and  sus- 
ceptible of  proof.  At  one  time  feeling  ran  so  high  on  this 
account  that  I  had  to  forego  an  address  upon  a  scientific 
topic  I  had  agreed  to  make  at  the  invitation  of  the  Indiana 
State  Medical  Association  at  Indianapolis.  Happily,  the 
facts  as  set  forth  were  established  and  accepted;  and  at  a 
subsequent  meeting  of  this  association  I  was  their  guest  and 
was  presented  by  its  members  with  a  beautiful  and  valued 
memorial. 

There  was  published  in  Harper's  Magazine,  in  1892,  my 
article  on  the  "Struggle  for  Oregon,"  written  chiefly  from 
the  diary  of  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth,  a  cousin  of  my  father's. 
In  1831-36  this  brave  and  enterprising  man,  foreseeing  the 
future  of  the  Oregon  country,  the  ownership  of  which  was 
then  in  dispute,  fitted  out  at  his  own  expense  an  expedition 
which  he  led  across  the  continent,  having  sent  a  ship-load  of 
supplies  around  "the  Horn."  This  ship  was  wrecked;  a 
number  of  the  men  with  him  were  killed  by  Indians ;  others 
died  or  deserted;  and  he  reached  his  destination  the  sole 
survivor.  He  made  the  return  trip  with  two  Indian  guides, 
wintered  in  the  Big  Horn  Mountains,  and  in  the  spring,  in 
a  boat  made  of  buffalo-hides,  moving  only  by  night  through 
the  vast  territory  of  the  Blackfeet  and  Sioux  Indians,  reached 
civiHzation.  Nothing  daunted,  he  organized  a  second  ex- 
pedition, which  he  established  where  now  stands  the  great 
city  of  Portland.  He  died  too  early  to  see  the  realization 
of  his  great  dream,  but  his  was  the  soul  of  the  pioneer;  he 
was  of  my  father's  family  and  kind,  and  I  felt  I  owed  it  to 
him  to  liave  history  record  that  he  v^'a3  of  that  brave  and 

391 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

enterprising  few  who  opened  the  doors  of  the  great  North- 
west to  his  countrymen. 

At  the  Milwaukee  meeting  of  the  American  Medical  Asso- 
ciation in  1893  I  was  elected  first  vice-president.  At  one 
of  the  sessions,  after  the  reading  of  a  paper  on  appendicitis 
by  the  distinguished  Professor  Nicholas  Senn,  as  I  was  not 
on  the  printed  programme  for  the  discussion,  the  chairman 
did  not  call  upon  me,  much  to  my  satisfaction,  as  I  had 
arrived  late  and  had  not  heard  the  entire  paper.  There 
were  many  of  my  former  pupils  and  other  friends  present, 
and  these  began  to  call  for  me  by  name.  As  I  did  not  re- 
spond, a  strapping  big  fellow  from  Chicago,  justly  eminent 
in  the  domain  of  urology  but  less  so  elsewhere,  arose  and 
held  forth  on  appendicitis.  It  so  happened  that  I  had  taken 
a  seat  by  a  lady  member,  and  when  my  Chicago  substitute 
finished  and  sat  down  she  remarked  to  me  "If  that's  the 
best  Dr.  Wyeth  can  do,  he'd  better  have  kept  still."  I  re- 
plied, "I  think  so,  too."  However,  I  was  not  allowed  to 
"sit  still,"  and  when  I  sat  down  after  saying  that  I  had  un- 
fortunately not  heard  the  paper  and  did  not  feel  competent 
to  discuss  it,  my  new-found  friend  and  I  became  better 
acquainted. 

I  began  in  1895  my  Life  of  Lieutenant-General  Nathan 
Bedford  Forrest.  From  the  beginning  of  the  war  he  had 
been  my  hero,  just  as  Marion  was  of  the  Revolution.  I  read 
with  avidity  of  his  great  exploits,  his  hand-to-hand  combats 
at  Monterey,  his  refusal  to  surrender,  and  the  escape  of  his 
entire  command  at  Fort  Donelson,  when  all  could  have 
marched  away  had  they  been  as  determined  and  fearless 
as  he;  of  Shiloh,  where  he  rode  in  among  Sherman's  in- 
fantry, who  jabbed  bayonets  at  him  and  his  bold  troopers 
and  shot  him  through  and  through  as  he  sabered  them  right 

392 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  left;  of  his  capture  of  everybod}^  and  ever3rthing  at 
Murf reesboro ;  the  swarth  of  destruction  he  cut  in  Grant's 
rear  in  west  Tennessee  during  Christmas  of  1862-63;  and 
the  pursuit  and  capture  of  Straight's  raiders,  probably  the 
most  wonderful  feat  of  the  Civil  War. 

When  I  enlisted  in  his  old  regiment  the  men  who  had 
served  with  him  never  ceased  to  sing  his  praise,  and  I  watched 
closely  his  marvelous  career  until  the  war  was  over.  When 
I  learned  of  his  great  poverty  in  earh^  life;  of  his  many 
struggles  to  support  his  widowed  mother  and  a  large  family 
of  children,  of  which  he  was  the  eldest;  that  he  was  wholly 
uneducated;  that  he  had  enlisted  in  the  war  as  a  private 
with  a  musket  on  his  shoulder  and  had  come  out  of  it  as 
lieutenant-general,  the  second  highest  rank  in  the  Confeder- 
ate army,  I  made  a  vow  that,  should  he  not  be  placed  right 
in  history  by  the  time  I  was  fifty  years  old,  I  would  under- 
take to  do  it.  It  was  now  1895,  Forrest  was  dead,  and  had 
not  had  justice  done  him,  and  I  kept  my  promise.  I  bought 
an  extensive  library  of  war  literature,  including  every  vol- 
ume of  the  official  records  of  both  the  Union  and  Confeder- 
ate armies,  and  these  I  gleaned  as  I  could  find  leisure  from 
a  very  busy  life. 

I  hit  upon  a  plan  of  gathering  information  which  worked 
out  very  satisfactorily.  Along  the  left  edge  of  a  sheet  of 
paper  about  twenty  inches  square  was  printed  in  a  two-inch 
column  a  condensed  sketch  of  Forrest  and  his  operations. 
A  full  set  of  these  was  mailed  to  ever}-  officer  and  private 
who  had  been  with  him,  whose  name  and  address  I  could 
obtain,  and  to  Union  officers  as  well.  I  requested  all  to  fill 
in  the  blank  spaces  with  such  facts  as  they  were  personally 
cognizant  of.  These  were  filed  away,  and  carefully  scruti- 
nized and  tested  by  comparison  with  and  reference  to  the 
26  393 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

official  reports  of  both  sides,  made  at  the  time  and  forwarded 
to  their  respective  departments.  The  voltime  was  brought 
out  in  1899,  and  rounded  up  a  very  busy  period  for  the 
author.  It  so  happened  that  a  new  edition  of  my  Surgery 
was  called  for  by  the  Appletons,  while  the  Harpers  were 
hurrying  the  Forrest  into  print.  Meanwhile,  I  was  run- 
ning my  private  hospital  and  practice  and  attending  to 
the  exacting  duties  of  senior  professor  of  surgery  and  man- 
ager of  the  Polyclinic.  Like  Sancho  Panza,  who  blessed  the 
man  who  invented  sleep,  I  blessed  the  discoverer  of  the 
stenographer.  For  a  while  I  kept  three  of  these  indispen- 
sable agents  at  work,  one  with  the  Surgery,  another  on  the 
Forrest,  and  a  third  for  miscellaneous  correspondence;  and, 
fortunately,  I  brought  both  books  out  on  time. 


XXVI 

THE  AMERICAN  MEDICAL  ASSOCIATION THE  MEDICAL  SOCIETY 

OP    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK THE    NEW    YORK    STATE 

MEDICAL   ASSOCIATION 

Certain  influential  members  of  the  Medical  Society  of 
the  State  of  New  York,  a  society  whose  charter  dated  back 
almost  to  colonial  days,  taking  exception  in  1880  to  the  code 
of  ethics  of  the  American  Medical  Association — an  organiza- 
tion of  which  each  state  society  was  a  component — ^brought 
about  the  secession  of  the  state  from  the  national  body. 
Thereupon  other  members,  equally  influential  but  somewhat 
less  numerous,  believing  that  the  best  interests  of  the  pro- 
fession and  the  public  would  be  served  by  keeping  in  affilia- 
tion with  and  helping  to  build  up  a  stronger  organization 
throughout  the  United  States,  withdrew  from  the  society 
and  formed  themselves  into  the  New  York  State  Medical 
Association. 

The  two  hostile  camps  created  an  imfortunate  situation. 
The  regular  medical  profession,  in  its  warfare  against  quack- 
ery and  ignorance  and  malpractice,  needed  to  be  a  solid  body 
with  a  united  front.  For  twenty  years  in  the  Empire  State 
it  was  as  a  divided  house,  and,  although  it  did  not  fall,  it 
was  leaning  over  so  far  that  the  enemies  of  progress  in  medi- 
cal affairs  smiled  in  their  sleeves  at  the  tottering  structure. 
The  only  redeeming  feature  of  this  deplorable  situation  was 
that  the  doctors  at  variance  were  acting   from  conviction 

395 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  had  no  axes  to  grind.  It  was  the  old,  old  story  of  the 
shield  with  its  two  sides,  and  the  difficulty  was  to  induce 
the  tilting  knights  of  the  spatula  and  scalpel  to  study  care- 
fully the  other  side.  There  was  not  a  time  in  all  this  un- 
happy controversy  over  questions  of  ethics  when  a  com- 
promise could  not  have  been  effected.  The  code  of  ethics 
was  a  sort  of  medical  family  Bible,  setting  forth  some  very 
strict  rules  of  conduct,  all  of  which  even  those  who  stood 
out  for  them  didn't  always  follow.  There  was  a  middle  and 
a  safe  way,  and  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  be  of  service  in  finding 
the  path  which  led  to  a  united  profession. 

I  was  intensely  loyal  to  the  American  Medical  Association. 
From  the  beginning  of  my  medical  career  I  realized  that 
it  was  only  by  building  up  a  national  association,  which 
would  not  only  be  strong  numerically,  but  by  attracting 
to  its  membership  the  men  of  attainment  and  influence, 
would  be  strong  politically,  that  the  much-needed  reforms 
could  be  effected.  I  had  joined  the  state  association  at  the 
start,  attended  the  meetings,  taken  part  in  the  scientific 
sessions,  but  had  never  held  any  office  or  taken  any  part 
in  its  management.  To  my  surprise,  while  this  body  was 
holding  its  meeting  in  New  York  City  in  the  fall  of  1900, 
Dr.  E.  Elliot  Harris,  prominent  in  its  affairs,  called  on  me 
with  a  proffer  for  the  nomination  for  the  presidency.  I  saw 
at  once  the  opportunity  to  attempt  to  reunite  the  profession 
in  the  state,  and  I  told  Harris  that  I  would  accept  the  office 
if  I  could  be  assured  by  those  influential  in  the  organization 
that  they  would  help  to  bring  about  a  compromise  with  the 
society,  which  might  result  in  a  reunion  with  the  members 
of  both  bodies  in  the  national  association.  They  held  a 
meeting,  gave  me  this  assurance,  and  I  was  elected  presi- 
dent, 

396 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Relying  upon  the  integrity,  loyalty,  and  the  extraordinary 
ability  of  Dr.  Harris,  I  met  him  several  times,  and  we 
finally  formulated  a  plan  which  we  proceeded  to  carry  out. 
Our  first  move  was  the  inaugiuration  of  an  active  campaign 
for  increasing  the  membership  of  the  association,  and  in 
doing  this  we  organized  new  bodies  in  counties  where  none 
had  existed.  Meetings  were  held  all  over  the  state,  attrac- 
tive papers  were  read  by  our  most  eminent  men,  and  a 
great  many  new  members  were  obtained.  In  two  counties 
we  won  over  to  the  association  the  regular  society  organiza- 
tions. When  the  movement  was  at  its  height  I  called  on 
the  leaders  of  the  society  and  found  them  ready  to  listen 
to  our  overtures.  While  this  was  pending  the  profession 
throughout  the  United  States,  having  learned  of  what  was 
being  attempted  in  the  Empire  State,  showed  their  approval 
by  electing  me  President  of  the  American  Medical  Associa- 
tion at  the  St.  Paiil  meeting  in  June,  1901,  and  at  the  request 
of  the  New  York  delegation  the  next  annual  meeting  of  the 
national  organization  was  held  at  Saratoga  in  1902.  To 
this  meeting  all  the  members  of  the  society  were  invited, 
and  the  work  of  fraternization  went  bravely  on.  Among  the 
prominent  physicians  of  the  state  who  lent  invaluable  aid 
at  this  juncture  was  mj?-  friend  and  former  partner  in  the 
college  quiz,  Professor  Joseph  D.  Bryant.  In  order  finally 
to  complete  the  fusion  certain  legal  steps  became  neces- 
sary. Dr.  Bryant,  already  prominent  in  public  as  well  as 
professional  affairs,  took  charge,  and  with  his  usual  tact  and 
skill  carried  the  reunion  to  a  successful  conclusion. 

The  American  Medical  Association  has  become  the  largest 
and  most  powerful  medical  organization  in  the  world.  It 
represents  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  practitioners 
in  the  United  States,  has  not  only  a  working  organization 

397 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  every  state  and  territory,  but  in  every  congressional  dis- 
trict and  in  nearly  every  county.  It  publishes  a  weekly 
journal,  which  has  a  wide  circulation,  and  in  addition  pos- 
sesses large  means  in  property  and  money.  Its  labors  have 
resulted  in  the  elevation  of  the  standard  of  requirements, 
not  only  for  entering  a  medical  college,  but  for  graduation 
and  practice,  and  it  has  done  much  to  uncommercialize 
medical  education  by  compelling  every  college  to  come  into 
the  control  of  a  recognized  university.  Coupled  with  the 
honors  received  from  my  fellow-members  of  the  profession 
came,  in  1902,  an  honorary  degree  of  LL.D  from  the  uni- 
versity of  my  native  state,  and  a  vote  of  appreciation  joint- 
ly to  Dr.  J.  Marion  Sims  and  myself  by  its  legislature. 


XXVII 

ITALY  AND  THE  GREAT  ST.  BERNARD THE  BONAPARTE  TRAIL 

— MARENGO 

To  Naples  in  1904  by  way  of  the  Azores  and  Gibraltar 
was  one  of  the  most  restful  and  enjoyable  sea  trips  I  have 
made.  On  the  fourteenth  day  out  we  landed  in  this  dirtiest 
and  most  interesting  of  European  cities.  Vesuvius,  the 
most  accessible  of  active  volcanoes,  is  an  awe-inspiring 
demonstration  of  the  tremendous  heat-energy  which — like 
the  rolled  steel  of  a  boiler — the  earth's  crust  is  holding  in. 
Now  and  then  in  some  thin,  weaker  spot  the  shell  gives  way, 
and  the  lava  and  other  products  of  combustion  boil  up  from 
the  depths.  Where  once  was  a  level  plain  a  huge  truncated 
cone  now  lifts  its  summit  four  thousand  feet  above  the  sea. 
No  one  who  stands  upon  the  edge  of  that  frightful  hole  in 
the  ground  can  ever  forget  it.  It  is  so  large  in  circumference 
that  a  forty-acre  field  could  be  dropped  fiat  into  it,  and  so 
deep  that  the  eye  cannot  measure  down  to  the  red-hot  lake 
of  lava  which  is  boiling  and  hissing  and  smoking,  and  through 
which  at  frequent  intervals  explosions  occur  which  shake 
the  mountain  to  its  base  and  shoot  far  above  the  crater  vast 
quantities  of  pumice-stone  and  ashes.  It  was  one  of  these 
outbreaks  in  a.d.  79  that  buried  Herciilaneum,  five  or  six 
miles  from  the  crater,  far  beneath  the  outpouring  lava,  and 
smothered  Pompeii,  still  farther  away,  for  ages  under  a 
shower  of  ashes  from  thirty  to  forty  feet  deep. 

399 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

A  few  years  after  my  visit  the  streets  and  housetops  oi 
Naples,  ten  miles  distant,  were  so  covered  with  ashes  that 
the  roofs  had  to  be  swept  from  time  to  time  to  keep  the 
accumulating  weight  from  crushing  them  in.  These  titanic 
eruptions  or  explosions  have  been  due,  as  I  believe,  to  the 
sudden  influx  of  vast  quantities  of  water  through  fissures 
communicating  with  the  bottom  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea. 

In  going  toward  the  crater  on  the  cog-wheel  railway  I 
made  at  least  one  very  interesting  observation.  Near  the 
top,  running  here  and  there  in  the  ashes  and  cinders  or 
dust,  I  noticed  a  number  of  small  lizards  not  unlike  those 
so  common  in  northern  Alabama.  As  their  habitat  was 
fully  three-quarters  of  a  mile  above  the  limit  of  vegetation, 
I  was  wondering  how  they  subsisted.  When  we  left  the 
car  and  began  the  climb  to  the  crater  on  foot  or  by  the 
chair-bearers  I  noticed  lying  in  the  warm  ashes  a  number 
of  insects,  lady-bugs,  potato-bugs,  and  one  or  two  larger 
insects  very  much  like  our  June-bugs  of  the  South.  Some 
were  dead,  others  still  living;  and  one  of  these  we  caught 
and  kept  alive  for  several  days  and  brought  home.  These 
accounted  for  the  presence  of  the  little  salamanders  who 
found  here  their  prey,  not  only  easily  caught,  but  more  or 
less  cooked. 

When  the  volcano  fires  one  of  its  big  charges  the  immense 
volume  of  hot  gases,  etc.,  shooting  upward  a  mile  or  more 
in  height  creates  a  powerful  suction  into  which  the  air  around 
the  side  and  base  of  the  mountain  is  drawn.  These  various 
insects  disporting  themselves  on  the  wing  among  the  rich 
vegetation  on  the  lower  mountainside  are  caught  in  the 
suction  of  this  maelstrom,  and  when  partially  asphyxiated, 
or  killed  by  the  gas  or  heat,  they  fold  their  small  wings  and 
drop  in  the  ashes,  where  their  coming  is  awaited  by  the  lizards. 

400 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

In  the  museum  at  Pompeii  the  most  interesting  exhibit 
contained  a  number  of  crude  surgical  instruments,  one  of 
which  was  of  a  shape  to  suggest  the  famous  Sims  speculum. 
Others  were  so  suggestive  of  torture  that  I  was  thankful 
that  I  practised  surgery  in  the  age  of  anesthesias. 

In  Naples  I  made  note  of  two  things  which  are  not  men- 
tioned in  my  books  of  travel.  One  was  the  absence  of  bits 
in  the  horses'  mouths.  Attached  to  a  strong  headstall  was 
a  heavy  band  of  leather  which  went  around  the  nose  and 
lower  jaw  just  above  the  corners  of  the  mouth.  Fastened 
to  this,  and  projecting  about  six  inches  on  either  side,  was 
an  iron  spike  with  a  ring  at  the  tip,  and  the  bridle-rein  or 
driving-line  was  attached  to  this.  It  answered  every  pur- 
pose, and  is  a  humane  substitute  for  the  cruel  metal  bit 
which  we  in  America  employ  without  mercy.  The  other 
was  a  clever  demonstration  of  the  value  of  the  conservation 
of  energy.  On  a  two- wheeled  cart,  drawn  by  a  diminutive 
donkey,  led  by  a  diminutive  youth,  was  arranged  a  stall, 
and  snugly  fitted  into  this  stood  a  huge,  fine  cow  being  hauled 
on  the  rounds  to  her  patrons.  The  water  in  the  milk  bought 
by  a  Neapolitan  housewife  is  there  only  per  vias  naturales, 
for  she  stands  by  and  watches  the  youth  as  he  transfers  his 
energies  from  the  donkey's  head  to  the  cow's  tail,  and 
squats  squarely  behind  to  milk  between  the  legs.  This  is 
the  millionaire's  milk- wagon.  The  goats  furnish  the  others. 
Passing  along  one  of  the  alleys,  I  followed  one  of  these 
milk-dealers  playing  away  on  his  woodland  reed  and  driving 
a  small  flock  of  goats.  When  we  overtook  the  procession 
it  had  halted,  and  the  goatherd  and  a  woman  were  in  a 
violent  altercation  over  half  a  glass  of  milk,  she  swearing 
she  would  never  pay  for  the  inch  of  foam  on  top,  and  he 
calling  the  Virgin  Mary  to  witness  that  that  foam  was  milk ! 

401 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

It  was  not  until  I  had  traveled  for  a  month  or  two  in 
Italy  that  I  understood  why  so  many  of  her  brown-tanned 
sons  were  willing  to  exile  themselves  from  such  a  beautiful 
country.  They  were  looking  for  work,  for  Italy  is  the  land 
of  holidays.  The  judgment  of  the  Americans  in  our  party 
was  that  in  Naples  none  but  foreigners  went  to  bed  at  night. 
The  natives  slept  all  day  and  twanged  stringed  instruments 
and  sang  melodious  nocturnes  and  other  arias  until  dawn. 
In  their  charming  language  that  verse  in  the  twentieth 
chapter  of  Exodus  which  reads,  "Six  days  shalt  thou  labor 
and  do  all  thy  work,"  has  found  no  place. 

From  the  early  days  of  youth,  when  I  read  and  read  again 
in  my  favorite  Childe  Harold: 

Oh,  Rome!    my  country,  city  of  the  soul; 
The  orphans  of  the  heart  must  turn  to  Thee, 
Lone  Mother  of  dead  Empires! 

I  longed  to  see  the  Rome  of  Byron.  When  I  came  away 
the  city  of  the  soul  was  a  phantom  city,  a  mirage,  a  night- 
mare. I  saw  and  still  see  that  marvelous  sculpture,  "The 
Gladiator,"  the  eternal  protest  of  the  human  heart  against 
the  thousands  "butchered  to  make  a  Roman  holiday."  I 
saw  the  wild  beasts  crouching  and  springing  on  their  help- 
less victims  in  the  arena,  while  the  vast  crowd  of  civilized 
savages  looked  down  from  the  amphitheater  of  the  Coli- 
seum, untouched  by  pity  at  the  awful  scene;  I  saw  traiHng 
in  chains  in  the  dust  of  Caesar's  triumphal  chariot  the  brave, 
the  noble,  the  vanquished  but  still  unconquered  Vincenge- 
torix,  and  then  great  Caesar  himself  stabbed  in  the  back  by 
his  trusted  friends !  This  was  Rome's  boasted  civilization — 
the  quintessence  of  cruelty,  the  refinement  of  barbarism. 
Her  history  is  written  in  blood. 

From  Pisa,  Rapallo,  Milano,  Venice,  and  the  lakes  we 

402 


A   CHAMOIS    ON    GUARD 

A  snap-shot  taken  by  the  author,  from  the  Bonaparte  Trail,  over  the  Great 
St.  Bernard  Pass 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

wandered  to  Novara,  a  quaint  and  most  attractive  old  city, 
so  far  out  of  the  beaten  path  of  travel  that  few  Americans 
discover  it.  I  would  not  have  known  of  it  but  for  my 
study  of  Bonaparte's  campaign,  for  this  was  one  of  his 
towns,  and  I  had  come  to  lead  an  expedition  of  my  own 
over  the  Alps  by  the  Great  St.  Bernard  Pass,  the  route  the 
First  Consul  followed  when  he  came  down  in  the  rear  of  the 
Austrians  and  fought  the  battle  of  Marengo. 

There  was  train-passage  to  Ivrea,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Valley  of  Aosta,  and  up  this  valley  to  the  village  with  the 
same  name.  At  Aosta  the  two  routes  from  the  Rhone  Valley, 
one  by  the  Little,  the  other  by  the  Great  St.  Bernard  Pass, 
unite.  Over  the  former  Hannibal  came  with  his  train  of 
elephants  in  October,  two  thousand  years  before  Bonaparte 
marched  down  the  other  in  May,  1800.  Half-way  up  the 
Alps  we  drove  by  wagon  to  the  hamlet  of  San  Remy,  where 
the  road  then  ended,  and  there  we  bivouacked  for  the  night. 
The  next  day,  with  six  mules  and  a  guide  to  lead  each  animal 
along  the  trail,  our  party  reached  the  Hospice  just  at  dark.^ 

On  the  way  up,  rounding  one  of  the  many  short  turns 
in  the  wide  path  upon  the  precipitous  point  of  a  crag,  stand- 
ing out  in  sharp  outHne  against  the  sky,  as  fixed  and  as 
motionless  as  if  cast  in  bronze,  was  a  mountain-goat  or 
chamois,  evidently  on  sentry  duty.  Scattered  among  the 
boulders  in  the  distance,  his  mates  were  browsing  on  the 
scant  Alpine  vegetation.  We  snapped  him  with  our  kodak 
before  he  leaped  down  and  disappeared. 

^  The  Swiss  government  many  years  ago  completed  an  excellent  wagon- 
road  from  the  Rhone  Valley  to  the  Hospice.  The  ItaHan  government  has 
gradually  extended  the  wagon-road  from  Aosta  northward,  the  terminal  now 
being  at  St.  Remy.  At  immense  expense  this  government  was  building  a 
magnificent  wagon-road  from  St.  Remy  to  the  Hospice,  which  was  to  be  open 
for  conveyances  in  1905.  Both  governments  have  planted  in  several  places 
great  mines  of  dynamite  to  make  this  route  impassable  if  need  be. 

403 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

As  we  approached  the  highest  point  of  the  Great  St. 
Bernard  we  came  upon  a  second  custom-house,  which  be- 
longs to  the  Swiss  government.  The  sun  was  just  setting 
when  we  rounded  a  bend  in  the  trail  and  came  suddenly 
upon  the  lake,  which  belongs  to  the  monastery,  and  across 
this  beautiful  body  of  clear  water  appeared  the  great  white 
Hospice,  from  which  a  pack  of  huge  St.  Bernard  dogs  came 
bounding  over  the  rocks,  barking  as  deeply  and  fiercely 
as  if  they  intended  to  devour  us  rather  than  offer  us  the 
welcome  and  rescue  which  legends  say  they  are  accustomed 
to  make.  The  myth  of  the  St.  Bernard  dog  with  the  little 
cask  of  wine  tied  about  his  neck  fades  away  like  many  others 
of  its  kind  when  one  gets  close  to  the  facts.  In  stormy  weather 
now  the  pious  pilgrim  on  his  or  her  way  to  the  holy  city  can 
find  shelter  in  one  of  the  numerous  telephone  booths  along 
the  route,  and  do  without  the  dogs  by  ringing  up  "Central." 

Though  the  Hospice  of  the  Brothers  of  St.  Bernard  is  for 
many  days  and  all  of  the  nights  of  the  year  a  cold  and  cheer- 
less place,  the  welcome  of  these  devout  priests  is  none  the 
less  warm.  They  greet  you  when  you  come,  give  you  with- 
out charge  shelter  and  food,  and  take  no  note  of  your  going. 
In  the  chapel  of  the  monastery  there  is  an  iron  chest,  or 
alms-box,  of  generous  size,  in  which  those  who  accept  their 
hospitality  may  of  their  own  accord  and  tmseen  drop  their 
contributions  to  the  support  of  this  noble  charity;  and  while 
many  of  the  poor  who  make  this  pilgrimage  on  foot  accept 
food  and  shelter  as  a  charity,  I  cannot  but  believe  that 
practically  all  who  pass  this  way  and  have  means  give 
enough  to  make  up  for  the  shortcomings  of  the  less  fortu- 
nate. In  any  event,  from  this  or  other  sources  the  Hospice 
and  the  brothers  are  supported,  and  they  prosper  and  have 
prospered  for  hundreds  of  years. 

404 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Sunk  in  the  wall  of  this  chapel  is  a  tablet  (basso-relievo) 
which  represents  the  death-scene  of  Desaix,  the  real  hero 
of  Marengo,  who  upon  that  memorable  day  saved  Bona- 
parte from  seemingly  irretrievable  disaster  and,  falling  in 
the  moment  of  victory  with  a  bullet  in  his  heart,  made  the 
Empire  possible  to  Napoleon. 

As  one  enters  the  Hospice  one  reads,  in  a  most  conspicu- 
ous place,  in  bold,  gilt  letters  on  a  slab  of  black  marble,  this 
apotheosis :  "Napoleoni  Prima  Francorum  Imperatori  Semper 
Augusta  Republic(B  Volescanoe  Restauratori  Semper  Optima 
Egyptica  Bis  Italica  Semper  Invicto.  In  Monte  J  avis  et  Sem- 
pronii  Semper  Memoranda  Repuhlica  Vale  sice  Grata  ii  De- 
cembris  MDCCCIV."  ^ 

In  a  spacious  room  near  by  one  of  the  priests  showed  us 
the  library  and  museum,  in  which  among  other  subjects  of 
interest  are  numerous  relics  of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  built 
upon  this  spot  by  Julius  and  Augustus  Caesar,  destined  to 
stand  as  a  pagan  shelter  for  wayfarers  for  a  thousand  years, 
and  then  to  be  razed  and  replaced  by  a  Christian  Hospice, 
in  which  pilgrims  to  Rome  and  other  wanderers  might  rest, 
and  from  this  room  I  learned  the  history  of  Bernard  de 
Menthon,  later  St.  Bernard.  Born  in  923  a.d.,  son  of  a 
peer  of  France,  educated  for  a  worldly  and  ambitious  career, 
he  was,  by  his  parents,  contracted  in  marriage  to  a  beauti- 
ful, wealthy,  and  accomplished  daughter  of  a  noble  family. 
Having  determined  to  devote  his  life  to  the  church,  he  fled 
across  the  Alps  in  order  to  escape  this  marriage  and  hid 
himself  in  Aosta.     Here,  in  the  ministration  of  his  priest- 

^I  venture  this  clumsy  translation:  "The  grateful  Republic  of  Valais  to 
Napoleon  the  First,  Ever  Majestic  Emperor  of  the  French,  Ever  Most  Ex- 
cellent Rebuilder  of  the  Republic  of  Valais,  Ever  Unvanquished  Conqueror 
of  Egypt  and  Twice  of  Italy,  Ever  to  be  borne  in  mind  on  the  Mountain  of 
Jupiter  and  of  Sempronius,     December  11,  1804." 

405 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

hood,  he  became  acquainted  with  the  depredations  of  the 
robber  bands  that  infested  the  mountain -passes,  exacting 
tribute  from  rich  pilgrims  and  practising  cruel  and  often 
fatal  torture  upon  those  too  poor  to  secure  their  ransom. 
Against  these  the  brave  and  pious  Bernard  led  a  successftil 
crusade,  destroying  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  erecting  in  its 
stead  the  Hospice,  which  to  this  day  bears  his  name.  After 
his  death  at  Novara,  in  1007,  in  his  eighty-fourth  year,  he 
was  buried  there,  then  canonized;  and  in  11 23  his  body  was 
exhumed  and  his  bones  and  teeth  divided  among  various 
churches  as  venerable  relics. 

All  this  and  much  more,  not  omitting  a  recital  of  the 
miracles  done  either  by  the  living  or  in  the  name  of  the 
dead  and  sainted  Bernard — of  plague  of  grasshoppers  stayed ; 
of  floods  made  to  recede;  of  storms  abated,  epidemics  ar- 
rested; of  the  judgment  of  fire  visited  upon  the  wicked;  of 
devils  cast  out;  of  the  deaf  made  to  hear,  the  dumb  to 
speak,  the  lame  made  to  walk;  of  one  much  younger  and 
yet  as  sonless  as  Sarah,  for  whom  hope  deferred  had  made 
the  heart  sick,  and  for  whom  the  holy  man  interceded,  not 
altogether  in  vain,  although  he  was  not  spared  to  witness  the 
fruition  of  his  work,  for  this  Isaac  came  not  into  the  world 
until  after  the  holy  man  had  left  it;  and  of  other  miracles, 
forty-six  in  all,  equally  wonderful — until  the  hour  was  late, 
and  the  good  brothers,  seeing  we  were  tired  and  sleepy  pil- 
grims, showed  us  their  best  rooms,  which  they  assured  us 
the  Prince  of  Wales  had  once  occupied,  and  in  their  clean 
and  cold — oh,  so  cold! — beds  we  slept  the  sleep  of  the  just, 
undisturbed  by  dreams  of  miracles  or  of  princes  and  kings, 
of  marching  hosts,  of  cannon  dragged  in  hollowed  trees, 
or  of  the  barking  of  the  St.  Bernard  dogs,  until  at  six  o'clock 
our  courier  banged  upon  the  door  to  announce  that  break- 

406 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

fast  was  ready,  the  carriage  waiting  to  convey  us  to  Martigny 
in  the  Rhone  Valley,  and  that  it  would  take  us  seven  hours 
to  catch  the  east-bound  train  for  Zermatt. 

This  excursion  along  the  Bonaparte  trail,  and  a  study 
of  the  grand  Italian  campaign  which  practically  ended  at 
Marengo,  dispelled  more  than  one  boyhood  illusion.  Read- 
ing Abbott's  Napoleon,  one  is  led  to  believe  this  crossing  of 
the  Alps  with  an  army  was  one  of  the  most  difficult  and 
dangerous  feats  in  human  history,  scarcely  possible  to  any 
except  a  Hannibal  and  a  Bonaparte!  The  truth  is,  there 
was  not  a  single  natural  obstacle  which  was  not  easily  and 
safely  overcome,  and  there  was  no  excuse  for  losing  a  man 
or  a  wheel  if  ordinary  care  was  exercised. 

From  Martigny,  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhone  in  Switzer- 
land (which  Napoleon  used  as  his  base  of  supplies) ,  to  Ivrea, 
in  the  valley  of  Piedmont,  is  approximately  ninety  miles. ^ 
To  the  Hospice  on  the  summit  of  the  Great  St.  Bernard 
notch  is  thirty  miles,  and  for  the  greater  part  of  the  way 
there  was  then  a  good  wagon-road.  For  about  six  miles 
on  either  side  of  the  notch,  or  pass,  there  was  a  trail  from 
four  to  six  feet  in  width,  in  many  places  too  narrow  for  the 
passage  of  wagons,  but  under  ordinary  precautions  at  the 
season  when  these  troops  marched  over,  late  in  May,  1800, 
perfectly  safe  for  the  transportation  of  men  and  materials 
of  war.  The  ascent  from  Martigny  along  the  vaUey  of  the 
Dranse  to  Orsieres  is  not  more  than  one  hiindred  feet  to  the 
mile.  Thence  to  Liddes,  five  miles  farther  up,  the  grade  is 
nearly  three  hundred  feet  to  the  mile,  while  from  this  point 
to  the  summit  of  the  Great  St.  Bernard  it  is  a  little  over 
three  hundred  and  forty  feet  to  the  mile.     As  far  as  the 

*  Martigny  is  1,560  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  at  its  highest  point 
the  Great  St.  Bernard  pass  is  8,108  feet. 

407 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ascent  was  concerned  this  section  gave  the  French  army 
the  greatest  difficiilty.  With  all  of  this,  however,  Napoleon 
had  practically  nothing  to  do,  since  Lannes,  leading  the  ad- 
vance column,  had  passed  over  and  into  Italy  before  Na- 
poleon joined  the  army,  and  everything  was  in  readiness 
for  the  rapid  passage  of  the  main  column.  It  was  Gassendi, 
inspector  of  ordnance,  who  conceived  the  idea  of  placing 
the  cannon  on  sleds  and  hollo  wed-out  logs,  which  the  men 
and  animals  dragged  along  the  narrower  parts  of  the  trail. 
The  most  precipitous  part  of  the  old  Napoleon  trail  is  that 
which  is  still  used  and  leads  from  the  Hospice  to  San  Remy, 
about  five  miles  away,  the  descent  being  about  six  hundred 
feet  to  the  mile.  From  San  Remy  to  Aosta,  thirteen  miles, 
it  becomes  more  gradual  and  is  not  more  than  two  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  to  the  mile,  and  in  1800  it  was  wide  enough 
for  the  transportation  of  wagons  and  artillery. 

As  an  example  of  the  exaggerated  accounts  of  this  passage 
the  following  is  quoted:  "During  the  summer  this  passage 
is  not  much  less  difficult  and  dangerous.  At  about  two  hun- 
dred paces  below  the  convent  is  situated  a  lake,  the  depth 
of  which  is  not  known,  and  which  is  scarcely  ever  thawed. 
The  snow  collects  there  in  heaps,  and  covers  in  such  a  man- 
ner the  frozen  surface  of  these  passages  that  travelers  often 
slide  under  it  without  being  able  to  avoid  it.  This  hap- 
pened to  the  Consul  more  than  once  while  he  was  coming 
to  join  us."  The  author  describes  in  one  place  how  ad- 
mirably Napoleon  performed  the  remarkable  feat  of  sliding 
two  hundred  feet  down  the  side  of  the  mountain  on  the  seat 
of  his  trousers.  Further  he  says:  "The  cold  upon  this 
mountain  is  excessive,  even  in  the  middle  of  summer.  No 
herb  or  green  leaf  to  offer  a  pleasing  verdure.  In  summer 
as  well  as  in  winter  many  people  perish  among  these  almost 

408 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

inaccessible  rocks.  At  the  time  we  crossed  them  the  chapel 
was  filled  with  dead  bodies  which  the  dogs  had  discovered 
under  the  snow ' ' ! 

When  I  was  there  the  lake  was  not  only  free  from  ice, 
but  it  was  as  clear  and  transparent  as  any  lake  in  the 
tropics.  While  the  sun  was  shining  the  weather  was  so 
excessively  warm  that  walking  up  the  mountain  brought 
up  memories  of  Broadway  in  June.  The  monks  in  the 
monastery  keep  a  large  herd  of  cows,  which  in  this  season 
are  driven  to  graze  on  the  slopes  within  sight.  The  sound 
of  the  bells  of  these  cows  could  be  heard  all  through  the 
night  from  the  Hospice. 

Bourrienne,  secretary  to  Bonaparte,  says:  "I  never  left 
him  for  a  moment  during  the  ascent.  We  encountered  no 
personal  danger  and  escaped  with  no  other  inconvenience 
than  excessive  fatigue.  The  rapid  descent  greatly  amused 
us." 

Two  thousand  years  earlier,  Hannibal,  with  an  army 
greater  than  Napoleon's,  with  much  cavalry  and  a  trans- 
portation train  of  elephants,  in  October  (a  season  of  the  year 
so  cold  that  he  was  snowed  in  and  could  not  move  for  three 
days)  made  the  passage  of  the  Little  St.  Bernard,  the  route 
over  which  joins  the  Bonaparte  trail  in  the  valley  of  Aosta. 
It  is  known  that  the  armies  of  Rome  often  traversed  this 
route  centuries  before  the  rule  of  Constantine,  who  as  early 
as  339  A.D.  expended  much  time  and  treasure  in  improving 
it  as  a  thoroughfare.  One  hundred  years  later  Attila  led 
his  horde  of  Magyars  over  this  pass  when  he  descended  to 
the  gates  of  Rome.  In  773  Bernard,  uncle  of  Charlemagne, 
marched  his  troops  over  into  Italy,  and  in  15 15  Francis  I. 
passed  this  way  with  his  army.  Even  in  the  Italian  cam- 
paigns of  1798  and  1799  the  French  and  Austrian  armies 
27  409 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

used  this  trail,  and  it  is  an  illustration  of  the  methods  em- 
ployed by  Bonaparte  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  his 
own  achievements,  that  at  the  same  time  he  was  following 
Lannes  over  the  Great  St.  Bernard  Pass  four  of  his  lieu- 
tenants were  performing  feats  of  the  same  character  equal 
to  if  not  more  difficult  than  his.  Turreau,  with  five  thou- 
sand men,  passed  over  the  Alps  by  the  Mont  Cenis  route, 
standing  off  and  eluding  a  guard  of  an  equal  number  of 
Austrians  who  attempted  to  check  him  at  the  head  of  the 
valley  of  the  Dora  Riparia;  Chabran,  following  the  route 
of  Hannibal,  crossed  the  Little  St.  Bernard  with  five  thou- 
sand men,  and  made  good  his  jimction  with  Napoleon  at 
Aosta  before  the  latter  at  Fort  Bard  met  the  only  opposition 
to  his  advance;  Moncey,  with  fifteen  thousand  men,  passed 
over  the  St.  Gotthard,  while  a  fourth  column  under  Bethen- 
court  forced  its  way  over  the  Simplon,  beating  off  at  Bellin- 
zona  ten  thousand  Austrians  sent  to  check  his  descent  into 
Piedmont. 

The  column  under  the  First  Consul,  forty-five  thousand 
strong,  was  held  at  bay  for  four  days  by  five  hundred  Aus- 
trians who  defended  Fort  Bard,  a  delay  which  subsequent 
events  proved  unnecessary,  and  might  have  proved  disas- 
trous had  an  able  and  energetic  general  been  in  command 
of  the  Austrian  army,  for  Melas  was  fully  cognizant  of  the 
movements  of  the  French  troops  across  the  Alps.  Unable 
to  dislodge  the  Austrians,  the  entire  French  army  passed 
unmolested  over  a  side-path  across  Mont  Albaredo,  a  spur 
of  the  Italian  Alps  which  juts  out  and  almost  closes  the 
valley  of  the  Dora  Baltea  at  Fort  Bard,  while  the  artillery 
and  wagon-train  passed  at  night  along  the  highway  imme- 
diately below  the  fort,  which  is  perched  high  up  on  the 
precipice.     Notwithstanding  the  much-vaunted  precaution 

410 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  wrapping  straw  around  the  wagon-wheels,  the  Austrians 
had  full  knowledge  of  this  movement  in  the  darkness,  but 
from  their  elevated  position  coiild  not  bring  their  guns  to 
bear  upon  the  train.  The  fort  did  not  surrender  until  June 
ist,  after  the  entire  French  army  had  passed  beyond  and 
had  captured  Ivrea  at  the  mouth  of  the  Piedmont  Valley. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  not  only  a  great  soldier,  but  a 
great  politician,  and  above  all  an  actor.  His  often  expressed 
conviction  was  that  to  hold  and  move  the  masses  one  must 
appeal  to  the  imagination.  With  wonderful  tact  he  had 
emerged  unscathed  from  the  dangers  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution to  find  himself  in  1800  in  the  center  of  the  world's 
stage,  playing  with  consummate  skill  the  leading  role  in  a 
great  and  tragic  epoch.  No  one  better  than  he  and  perhaps 
his  gifted  brother  Lucien  realized  that  he  was  now  at  the 
crisis  of  his  career,  and  not  the  least  important  part  of  the 
programme  of  empire  was  the  concealment  of  his  mistakes 
and  failures  and  the  exaggeration  of  his  successful  achieve- 
ments. The  press  agent  at  Paris  was  almost  as  important 
as  the  soldier  in  the  field,  and  Lucien  proved  himself  an 
adept.  The  echoes  of  the  marvelous  campaign  of  1796-97 
were  never  for  a  moment  permitted  to  die  out.  The  ex- 
pedition to  Egypt  appealed  to  the  imagination.  Its  whole 
conception  was  a  mistake ;  its  execution,  as  far  as  Napoleon 
was  concerned,  nothing  but  a  series  of  blunders,  and  yet  so 
carefully  concealed  or  skilfully  glossed  over  that  the  general- 
in-chief,  who,  without  order  from  his  government  and  with 
entire  disregard  of  every  honorable  sentiment  or  soldierly 
regard  for  his  comrades,  had  deserted  and  slipped  away 
from  them  at  night,  was  hailed  as  the  hero  of  the  hour  at 
Paris  and  welcomed  as  a  conqueror.  In  the  light  of  the 
facts,  which  now  are  open  to  all,  it  almost  challenges  belief. 

411 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  only  brilliant  incident  of  this  Egyptian  campaign  was 
Elleber's  victory  at  Heliopolis,  after  Bonaparte's  defeat  at 
Acre  and  the  disastrous  retreat  across  the  desert.  With 
thirteen  thousand  men,  the  remnant  of  the  troops  left  in 
Egypt,  he  defeated  Youssef  Pasha  with  a  greatly  superior 
force  and  practically  destroyed  his  army.  And  surely  his 
lucky  star  was  over  him  at  Marengo.  If  any  general  ever 
deserved  defeat  Napoleon  Bonaparte  deserved  it  at  Maren- 
go; and,  what  is  more,  he  got  it.  That  victory  was  won  by 
Desaix  and  Kellermann,  in  spite  of  the  blunders  of  their 
commander,  who  permitted  himself  to  be  surprised,  all  of 
his  artillery  but  six  pieces  captured,  and  his  army  beaten 
and  driven  in  panic  from  the  field. 

On  the  8th  of  June,  six  days  before  the  battle,  the  French 
cavalry  captured  an  Austrian  courier  with  despatches  which 
told  of  Massena's  surrender  at  Genoa,  and  put  Bonaparte 
in  full  possession  of  his  enemy's  plans.  He  knew  that  Ott, 
who  had  been  conducting  the  siege  of  Genoa,  had,  soon  after 
Massena's  surrender,  started  June  6th  to  join  Melas  and 
Zach  at  Alesandria.  Notwithstanding  this  information, 
instead  of  concentrating  his  army,  he  had  left  twenty-three 
thousand  of  his  best  troops  so  far  away  that  they  were  prac- 
tically unavailable  in  case  of  disaster.  Even  on  the  13  th  of 
June,  the  day  before  he  was  attacked  by  Melas  at  Marengo, 
he  had  only  the  division  of  Victor  on  the  field.  Lannes  was 
three  miles  away  with  his  corps,  while  Desaix  was  at  Novi, 
in  the  direction  of  Genoa. 

C.  Petit,  who  was  present,  and  who  cannot  be  considered 
in  any  other  light  than  an  ardent  worshiper  at  the  shrine 
of  Napoleon,  says:  "In  short,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  in  the  line  of  five 
miles  or  more  there  did  not  stand  six  thousand  infantry  to 

412 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

their  colors,  and  only  six  pieces  of  cannon  could  be  made 
use  of."  At  this  time  Napoleon  was  only  saved  from  de- 
struction by  the  timely  arrival  of  the  devoted  Desaix,  who, 
after  a  wonderfully  rapid  and  fatiguing  march  with  his 
corps,  came  on  the  field,  and  with  the  aid  of  the  younger 
Kellermann,  who  still  held  his  cavalry  in  hand,  catching 
the  Austrians  in  an  unguarded  moment  when  they  deemed 
their  victory  so  complete  that  nothing  was  left  but  to  gather 
up  the  flying  Frenchmen  as  they  could  overtake  them,  broke 
through  the  Austrian  line  by  a  desperate  assault,  over- 
whelmed one  wing  of  their  army,  capturing  a  large  number 
of  prisoners,  and  causing  a  panic  in  the  remainder  which 
left  Napoleon  master  of  the  field  in  one  of  the  most  surprising 
victories  of  his  strange  career.  The  Empire  was  possible 
after  Marengo. 

Desaix,  falling  with  a  bullet  through  his  heart  in  the  mo- 
ment of  victory,  was  the  last  of  the  brilliant  trio  to  whom, 
after  Bonaparte,  France  might  have  looked  for  military 
leadership.  Marceau  had  fallen  at  Coblenz,  and  Hoche  had 
perished  from  disease. 


XXVIII 

MIND-READING  OR  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  —  THE  VALUE 
OF  SUGGESTION — CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE — THE  MIRACLES  AT 
LOURDES-A    MORMON    EPISODE   AND    OTHER    EXPERIENCES 

The  training  of  the  physician  teaches  him  to  observe 
quickly  and  to  "read  between  the  Hnes."  Consciously  or 
unconsciously,  a  great  many  patients  try  to  deceive  them- 
selves, and  would  deceive  the  doctor  were  he  not  capable 
of  looking  beyond  the  subjective  symptoms.  A  single  ob- 
jective symptom,  something  seen  or  felt,  is  often  of  more 
value  in  arriving  at  a  diagnosis  than  a  whole  history  of  the 
aches  and  pains  and  sensations  submitted  by  the  sufferers. 
Dr.  S.  Wier  Mitchell  once  told  me  of  an  experience  which 
illustrates  this  point.  Spending  a  vacation  on  the  Riviera, 
he  was  seated  in  a  small  park  apart  from  the  crowd;  he 
had  been  pointed  out,  and  was  approached  by  a  well-dressed 
stranger.  The  man  wore  a  light  overcoat  which  was  un- 
buttoned, and  as  he  came  near  the  doctor  observed  in  an 
inside  pocket  a  cigar-case,  from  which  projected  the  ends 
of  a  dozen  cigars  of  a  brand  he  smoked  himself  and  knew 
to  be  very  strong.  The  man  said:  "Dr.  Mitchell,  I  have 
come  all  the  way  from  America  to  consult  you.  I  am  a 
sick  man,  and — "  Here  the  doctor  interrupted  him,  say- 
ing, "Sit  down,  sit  down,  I  believe  you,"  and,  feeling  his 
pulse  at  the  wrist  for  a  few  seconds,  he  continued :  * '  Yes,  you 
are  a  sick  man ;  you  are  killing  yourself  with  tobacco.     How 

414 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

many  cigars  do  you  smoke  in  a  day?"  and  to  his  confession 
that  he  smoked  Henry  Clays  or  some  other  strong  cigar  al- 
most incessantly  he  added :  ' '  Give  up  tobacco,  and  you  will 
be  a  well  man."  The  patient  was  profoundly  impressed 
with  the  doctor's  quick  reading  of  his  pulse,  believed  in 
him,  and  was  cured. 

One  of  my  own  experiences  is  somewhat  akin  to  this. 
Spending  the  summer  near  New  York,  I  made  it  the  rtde 
to  be  in  my  office  in  the  city  at  a  certain  hour  on  two  days 
of  each  week.  As  I  was  nearing  my  door  I  noticed  a  man 
a  few  feet  ahead  of  me  who  tiimed  to  ring  my  bell.  He 
had  on  a  long  frock-coat  which  fitted  well  and  wore  a  soft 
felt  hat.  At  first  glance  I  took  him  to  be  from  the  South; 
but  as  he  was  pulling  at  the  bell-knob,  he  having  not  yet 
seen  me,  I  noticed  on  the  rim  of  one  ear  a  well-marked 
epithelioma,  a  form  of  cancer  which  occurs  only  after  frost- 
bite. I  then  placed  him  from  the  Northwest,  for  his  coat 
and  hat  were  not  of  the  East.  As  I  came  up  the  stoop  just 
behind  him  I  said,  "You  want  to  see  Dr.  Wyeth?"  He 
turned  quickly  and  said,  "Yes."  I  continued  in  an  off- 
hand manner  as  I  was  getting  my  key  into  the  lock  and 
not  looking  toward  him.  "About  that  cancer?"  He  said, 
"Yes."  "From  the  Northwest?"  "Yes."  "Nebraska  or 
Iowa?"  "Why?  Iowa!"  "What  regiment  did  you  serve 
in  during  the  war?"  (He  had  a  small  Grand  Army  button 
on  the  lapel  of  his  coat  collar.)  "I  was  major  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Iowa."  I  said:  "Well,  you're  an  old  Yank,  and  I'm 
an  old  Reb,  and  it's  time  for  luncheon.  There's  nobody 
here  but  you  and  me  and  the  cook.  We'll  have  some  tea 
and  bread  and  butter,  and  talk  over  war-times."  By  this 
time  we  were  standing  within  the  hallway,  and  he  said: 
"All  right;   but  before  we  go  any  further  I'd  like  to  know 

415 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

how  much  you  will  charge  me  for  the  operation?"  I  told 
him;  and  then  he  exclaimed:  "Well,  my  goodness!  What 
kind  of  a  man  are  you,  anyway?  You  never  saw  me  be- 
fore in  your  life ;  you  knew  I  was  looking  for  you ;  knew  what 
was  the  matter  with  me ;  knew  what  state  I  was  from ;  knew 
I  was  in  the  Union  army;  and  d —  me  if  you  haven't  named 
exactly  the  amount  I  made  up  my  mind  to  pay  for  the 
operation." 

The  only  real  guess  I  had  to  make  was  the  last  one,  and 
I  named  the  sum  usually  charged  for  a  minor  surgical  opera- 
tion, which,  in  all  likelihood,  the  doctor  who  sent  him  to  me 
told  him  I  would  charge.  Fifteen  years  later  I  had  my  last 
letter  from  him,  asking  for  a  certificate  of  my  findings  in  his 
case,  as  he  wanted  to  take  out  life  insurance.  There  was 
nothing  of  "thought-transference"  or  telepathy  or  "mind- 
reading"  in  all  this;  yet  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  con- 
veyance to  and  registration  upon  one  mind  of  an  impression 
or  thought  emanating  from  another  mind.  I  have  demon- 
strated this  by  experiments  so  carefully  guarded  that  there 
is  no  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  the  fact.  I  explain  it  satis- 
factorily to  myself  in  this  way:  The  nerve  trunks  and  their 
terminal  branches  (end-organs)  in  the  superficial  skin  are 
capable  of  conducting  the  electric  waves  or  current  from  the 
surface  to  the  brain,  and  vice  versa,  and,  when  a  circuit  of 
several  persons  is  made  by  holding  hands,  the  current  can 
be  made  to  pass  on  and  on  from  one  through  the  other  until 
it  comes  back  again  to  the  battery  cells  from  which  it  was 
sent,  thus  completing  the  circuit.  The  same  nerves  con- 
duct the  sensations  of  touch,  heat,  cold,  pain,  etc.,  from  the 
surface  to  the  brain,  where  these  senses  are  registered  and 
appreciated.  They  also  convey  impulses  from  the  brain 
(the  battery)  to  the  muscles. 

416 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Certain  brains  are  capable  of  great  powers  of  concentra- 
tion— that  is,  the  individual  possessing  this  quality  of  brain 
can  eliminate  all  thought  of  other  things  and  think  fixedly 
and  clearly  of  just  one  thing.  Certain  other  brains,  and  these 
are  very  rarely  met  with,  are  capable  of  eliminating  at  least 
from  their  conscious  mind  for  the  time  being  every  process 
of  thought  or  cerebration,  leaving  the  mind  so  blank  and 
receptive  that  it  may  be  compared  to  the  sensitive  photo- 
graphic plate  upon  which  an  impression  may  be  readily 
and  quickly  imprinted. 

I  had  read  of  this,  but  was  desirous  of  testing  it  thorough- 
ly before  accepting  it.  One  Sunday  evening  a  party  of 
friends  were  gathered  at  my  house,  and  at  my  suggestion 
the  following  experiment  was  made:  Six  of  us  joined  hands, 
forming  a  circle  around  a  small  table,  one  of  the  six  being 
blindfolded.  A  card  was  laid  on  the  table,  and  upon  this 
object  the  other  five  of  the  circuit  fixed  their  undivided 
attention.  I  was  first  blindfolded,  but  registered  no  im- 
pression, and  two  others  were  tried  with  negative  results. 
The  fourth  person  was  a  girl  about  sixteen  years  old,  a  grand- 
daughter of  Dr.  J.  Marion  Sims,  very  intelligent  and  culti- 
vated, mentally  and  physically  sound,  and,  while  not  lack- 
ing in  the  tenderness  of  femininity,  rather  leaning  toward 
athletics  and  the  outdoor  life.  Some  one  placed  the  seven 
of  hearts  in  the  center  of  the  table,  and  as  soon  as  our  eyes 
and  thought  were  fixed  intently  on  it,  in  a  quick  and  startled 
tone  she  exclaimed:  "Oh!  I  see  the  seven  of  dia — no;  it's 
hearts!" 

I  was  about  as  much  startled  as  she  seemed  to  be,  and 
tried  other  cards  and  then  other  objects,  all  of  which  she 
described.  I  had  used  only  a  single  large  silk  handkerchief, 
and,  although  it  completely  obscured  vision  for  me,  I  deter- 

417 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

mined  to  make  assurance  sure  by  wadding  one  large  ker- 
chief for  each  eye  and  binding  these  down  with  a  third 
broad  napkin,  and  this  method  I  tested  on  myself.  Vision 
was  impossible;  and  later,  to  satisfy  the  skeptical,  I  adopted 
other  means  of  eliminating  all  possibilities  of  self-deception 
or  collusion.  I  carried  on  these  demonstrations  or  tests 
for  some  two  years,  and  convinced  every  one  who  wit- 
nessed them,  as  I  did  myself,  that  thought-transference  or 
the  photographing  of  a  visual  impression  from  one  brain 
upon  the  sensitive  plate  or  subconscious  mind  (as  I  inter- 
preted it)  of  another  was  a  fact.  One  of  my  most  satis- 
factory experiments  was  with  the  "sensitive"  and  myself. 
She,  bHndfolded  and  standing  behind  me,  would  touch  my 
forehead  very  lightly  with  the  tips  of  the  fingers  of  both 
hands  and  describe  accurately  any  object  upon  which  I 
could  fix  my  attention.  I  would  qmetly  take  my  watch 
from  the  pocket,  hold  it  so  that  my  body  intervened  and 
look  steadily  at  the  hour  and  the  minute  hands,  and  she 
would  tell  me  their  relative  positions  correctly. 

I  also  observed  that  I  could  tell  just  when  she  would 
appreciate  the  object  I  had  in  mind.  From  the  watch  I 
would  turn  to  a  series  of  photographs,  and  she  would  indi- 
cate the  one  at  which  I  was  looking.  On  one  occasion  she 
succeeded  in  recording  the  object  in  mind  with  her  fingers 
upon  the  forehead  of  a  third  person  who  in  turn  had  her 
fingers  on  my  forehead.  I  might  select  a  single  word  from 
the  page  of  a  magazine,  fix  my  mind  on  it,  and  she  would 
read  it  aloud.  The  experiments  have  been  entirely  discon- 
tinued now  for  several  years,  and  I  do  not  know  whether 
or  not  this  peculiar  condition  of  mind  persists.  Many  of 
the  so-called  telepathic  or  spiritualistic  phenomena  may 
in  this   way   be   accoimted   for,   just   as   I   shall   explain 

418 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  the  article  on  Right-Handedness  why  it  is  the  mind 
occasionally  registers  a  double  impression  of  a  single  visual 
image.  When  this  occurs  the  two  halves  of  the  brain  are 
not  working  in  unison;  one  half  (usually  the  left),  a  little 
more  alert,  catches  the  impression  a  fraction  of  time  ahead 
of  the  other — hence  the  confused  image.  What  we  call 
training  the  mind  is  nothing  more  than  drilling  the  two 
halves  of  our  brain  to  work  thoroughly  well  together,  not 
unlike  the  two  horses  of  a  well-trained  team.  And  yet  I 
have  had  otherwise  sensible  people  tell  me  they  were  con- 
vinced that  they  had  lived  before  because  at  times  things 
happened  which  they  had  already  seen! 

There  is  another  queer  phase  of  mind  which  probably 
every  practitioner  of  experience  has  observed.  I  can  illus- 
trate it  by  the  following  case.  A  lady,  the  mother  of  several 
children,  was  brought  to  me  on  account  of  a  lameness.  Six 
years  before  she  had  been  thrown  from  a  carriage  in  a  run- 
away accident,  her  knee  severely  and  painfully  sprained 
and  she  mentally  impressed  or  shocked  with  the  sup- 
posed gravity  of  the  injury.  After  a  few  weeks  in  bed  she 
went  about  on  crutches,  and  for  six  years  would  not  move 
from  her  chair  without  them.  She  had  consulted  doctors 
at  home  and  abroad,  and  resented  the  suggestion  that  she 
could  walk  if  she  would.  The  joint  was  entirely  normal, 
the  muscles  of  the  extremity  slightly  atrophied  from  want 
of  exercise,  but  still  able  to  support  their  part  of  the  body 
and  to  be  used.  She  was  high-strung  and  hysterically  in- 
clined. I  told  her  husband  that  she  could  get  along  with- 
out the  crutches,  but  that  we  had  to  deal  with  a  mental 
condition  which  would  require  special  treatment,  and  he 
agreed  to  stand  by  me  in  anything  I  might  undertake. 
After  two  days  devoted  to  a  most  tedious  and  painstaking 

419 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

examination,  with  measurements  all  noted  carefully,  the 
lesion  was  at  last  discovered,  to  her  immense  relief;  and  with 
a  dramatic  climax,  in  which  only  the  end  could  justify  the 
means,  I  induced  an  acute  hysterical  cataclysm  with  par- 
tial collapse,  in  which  the  cure  was  dexterously  effected; 
and  I,  the  fraud  triumphant,  said  in  a  commanding  tone 
to  her  husband:  "Now,  break  her  crutches!  She  will 
never  need  them  again!"  And  the  leading-man  played  his 
role.  She  was  overjoyed  at  my  discovery  and  the  miraculous 
cure,  was  on  her  feet  at  once,  and  in  six  days  walked  un- 
aided to  my  office,  over  a  mile  distant. 

The  miracles  at  Lourdes,  and  those  effected  by  the  sight 
of  or  touching  sacred  relics,  and  the  cures  by  Christian 
Science,  are  of  the  same  order.  Some  mental  shock  or 
excitation  seems  necessary  to  the  dislodgment  of  a  morbid 
impression  and  the  re-establishment  of  the  normal  process 
of  cerebration.  The  condition  termed  hypnotic  is  one  of 
suspended  consciousness,  and  under  certain  conditions  can 
be  used  to  advantage.  In  the  presence  of  my  class  at 
the  Polyclinic  I  removed  a  tumor  two  inches  in  diameter 
from  the  shoulder-blade  of  a  physician  with  no  anesthetic, 
general  or  local,  and  with  no  appreciation  of  pain.  I  told 
him  very  convincingly  that  I  would  not  hurt  him  in  the 
least,  that  I  would  deaden  all  sensation  with  cocaine.  I 
injected  three  or  four  drops  of  a  weak  solution  in  a  line 
about  an  inch  long,  and  in  cutting  in  the  line  my  knife 
slipped  and  went  fully  a  half  inch  away  from  the  injected 
area.  As  he  did  not  wince,  I  slapped  him  on  the  back, 
saying,  "You  feel  no  pain,"  and  went  ahead  with  an  ex- 
tensive dissection  two  inches  in  depth,  making  a  wound 
at  least  six  inches  in  circumference.  The  patient,  evi- 
dently  hypnotized    by    suggestion,    assured    me    that    at 

420 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

no  time  was  he  conscious  that  I  was  cutting  into  his 
back. 

A  New  York  wag  said  it  was  not  until  he  had  watched 
New  York  society  promenading  past  the  "Flatiron  Build- 
ing" on  a  gusty  day  that  he  had  learned  how  "fearfully 
and  wonderfully  women  were  made."  He  had  evidently 
read  Richardson's  Beyond  the  Mississippi,  and  presumed 
I  hadn't.  That  this  description  applies  to  certain  mental 
attributes  as  well  as  to  anatomical  make-up  the  following 
incident  may  attest: 

Thirty  years  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  a  doctor  in 
Texas  informing  me  that  a  man  and  his  wife,  owning  a 
ranch  in  that  state  on  which  they  had  been  living  for  several 
years,  were  coming  to  consult  me  in  regard  to  the  man's 
illness.  I  found  he  had  an  incurable  disease  of  the  liver. 
On  one  occasion  when  his  wife,  my  assistant,  and  I  were 
treating  him  the  door  of  his  room  was  suddenly  opened  by 
some  one  who  did  not  knock,  and  a  woman,  neatly  dressed, 
her  face  expressing  great  determination  and  excitement, 
started  to  walk  in.  Before  she  had  made  more  than  a 
single  step,  the  wife,  who  evidently  recognized  her,  sprang 
forward  to  meet  her,  caught  her  by  the  arm,  and  pushed  her 
toward  the  door.  As  she  did  this  I  heard  her  say,  in  a  sup- 
pressed tone,  "Not  now!"  Of  course  my  curiosity  was 
aroused  by  this  strange  procedure;  but,  as  it  was  none  of 
my  affair,  I  should  never  have  referred  to  it  had  it  ended 
there.  I  had,  however,  scarcely  seated  myself  in  my  office 
after  retiirning  from  this  visit  when  some  one  was  an- 
nounced, and  in  walked  the  lady  whose  face  I  had  a  glimpse 
of  a  few  minutes  before. 

She  told  me  this  story,  and  it  was  true:  "The  man  you 
are  treating  is  my  husband,   whom  I  have  for  six  years 

421 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

mourned  as  dead.  His  name  is  ,  and  when  he  dis- 
appeared, as  we  had  reason  to  believe  by  suicide  or  foul 

play,  he  was  manager  of  the (mentioning  the  name  of 

one  of  the  leading  metropolitan  dailies).  This  morning  I 
came  to  the  city  to  do  some  shopping,  and  while  at  lunch- 
eon in  a  restaurant  I  was  astonished  to  see  enter  and  seat 
themselves  my  husband  and  this  woman,  whom  I  have 
known  for  years,  and  who  also  had  been  reported  as  having 
killed  herself.  They  did  not  recognize  me,  and  when  they 
went  out  I  followed  them  to  their  rooms,  and  when  you 
came  away  I  followed  you  here. 

"Six  years  ago  the  business  of  my  husband's  paper  called 
him  to  St.  Louis,  where  he  was  registered  at  the  Planters' 
Hotel.  A  day  or  two  later  his  hat  and  coat  were  picked 
up  at  the  wharf  there,  his  effects  were  left  at  the  hotel,  and 
the  newspapers  published  his  disappearance  and  suicide 
in  the  Mississippi.  From  that  day  until  to-day  I  believed 
him  dead.  The  woman  with  him  is  the  wife  of  another 
man.  She  and  her  husband  lived  in  our  village,  and,  while 
my  husband  and  I  were  acquainted  with  them,  I  had  not 
the  slightest  suspicion  of  an  improper  relation.  I  knew 
that  she  had  no  children,  and  that  she  and  her  husband 
did  not  get  on  any  too  well  together.  Soon  after  my  hus- 
band was  reported  dead  this  woman's  shawl  and  hat  were 
picked  up  on  a  pier  on  the  East  River,  and  her  husband 
received  a  despairing  note,  informing  him  of  her  resolution 
to  end  her  life." 

I  told  the  woman  her  husband  could  only  live  a  few  weeks, 
and  she  then  went  to  see  him,  and  a  reconciliation  took 
place,  not  only  between  the  man  and  his  wife,  but  between 
the  two  women.  He  lived  about  the  number  of  weeks  I 
had  guessed,  and  these  two  women  took  turns  day  and 

422 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

night  nursing  and  watching  over  him  with  affectionate 
devotion.  When  he  was  d3'ing,  and  I  left  the  room  feeling 
very  much  like  "a  looker-on  in  Vienna,"  each  was  holding 
a  hand  and  both  were  crjang.  In  apotheosis,  in  my  mind's 
eye,  I  saw  looking  down  (or  up)  on  this  pathetic  scene  the 
smiling  visages  of  Joseph  Smith  and  Brigham  Young.  And 
while  borrowing  from  the  storehouse  of  Avon,  why  not 
write  here  those  original  words  of  the  immortal  Dogberry: 
"God  help  us!   it  is  a  world  to  see!" 

In  the  list  of  tragedies  another  comes  into  mind,  and  it 
is  one  I  love  to  remember.  A  woman  of  about  thirty, 
modestly  and  fashionably  dressed  in  black,  whose  handsome 
face  and  bearing  bespoke  good  breeding  and  proper  bringing 
up,  without  any  sort  of  introduction,  asked  me  to  place  her 
in  a  training-school  for  niu-ses.  From  the  appearance  of 
her  hands,  which  were  small  and  white,  I  inferred  that  she 
had  not  been  accustomed  to  work,  and  several  costly  rings 
suggested  that  it  was  not  absolutely  necessary.  Her  accent 
was  of  the  South;  and,  while  she  was  evidently  desirous  of 
not  revealing  her  identity,  the  fact  that  she  had  come  to  me 
for  aid  or  advice  convinced  me  that  she  had  lived  among 
my  friends.  I  realized  that  she  was  in  dead  earnest,  and 
there  w^as  that  indescribable  something  about  her  which 
told  me  she  was  a  good  woman.  I  explained  to  her  the  hard 
life  she  was  planning  and  urged  her  not  to  go  into  it  un- 
less she  was  ready  to  give  up  everything  else  and  devote 
her  entire  time  to  it.  She  had  considered  all  this  and  was 
ready. 

A  fortnight  later  I  called  by  the  hospital  and  saw  her  in 
the  uniform  of  a  probationer,  freshening  up  a  bath-room 
in  which  she  had  just  finished  bathing  a  patient.  She 
seemed  happy,  and  the  superintendent  said  she  was  an  in- 

423 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

defatigable  worker  and  gave  promise  of  making  an  excellent 
nurse.  Meanwhile,  she  had  told  me  her  story.  It  was 
tragic  and  pathetic,  in  that  she  was  the  innocent  victim  of 
the  devotion  of  another  man  than  her  husband,  and  the 
circumstances  were  such  that  she  was  seemingly  guilty  and 
had  been  so  judged  in  her  native  village.  I  knew  her  hus- 
band and  her  people,  and  the  man  who  had  paid  for  his  in- 
fatuation with  his  life  had  been  one  of  my  most  brilliant 
pupils.  He  was  the  leading  physician  of  his  section,  and 
had  married  the  most  intimate  friend  of  my  fledgeling  nurse. 
His  wife  died  after  a  long  illness,  through  which  her  friend 
nursed  her  day  in  and  out.  The  village  gossips  thought  she 
was  too  much  at  the  doctor's  home,  and  that  the  doctor 
was  more  attentive  and  demonstrative  of  his  appreciation 
of  another  man's  wife  than  Mrs.  Grundy's  code  of  ethics 
prescribed. 

Her  brother  came  under  the  spell  of  this  gossip.  A  week 
or  two  after  the  funeral  the  doctor,  who  had  driven  in  his 
buggy  to  her  husband's  home,  asked  her  to  go  with  him  to 
the  cemetery  to  place  some  flowers  on  the  new  grave.  As 
he  drove  back  to  her  gate,  without  a  word  of  warning  this 
brother  shot  the  doctor  dead  so  instantly  that  he  spoke 
not  a  word.  The  sister,  horrified  at  the  deed,  denounced 
her  brother  as  a  cowardly  murderer.  The  law  of  gossip 
cleared  the  murderer  and  divorced  the  wife  and  mother; 
for  the  dead  man's  will  was  read  in  court,  and  he  had  left 
his  money  to  his  wife's  friend!  That  settled  every  doubt. 
She  had  lost  reputation,  husband,  children,  friends.  No- 
body stood  by  her  and  believed  in  her  excepting  her  mother 
and  the  writer  of  these  memoirs,  and  he  told  her  that  if 
she  was  true  to  her  high  purpose  of  showing  by  a  life  of  de- 
votion to  duty  that  she  was  worthy  of  the  husband's  love 

424 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

which  she  had  lost  he  would  come  back  to  her  and  bring 
her  babies  with  him. 

She  made  a  great  nurse,  and  when  a  town  in  New  York 
was  panic-stricken  by  an  epidemic  of  typhoid,  she  went 
there  like  a  "Sister  Seraphine,"  and  labored  for  months 
and  won  a  host  of  friends.  The  news  of  all  this  found  its 
way  back  to  the  village  in  Texas ;  and  presently  she  came  into 
my  office  radiant  over  a  letter  from  her  mother,  saying  her 
husband  had  consented  to  let  her  see  her  children  again. 
While  she  was  on  this  visit  to  her  own,  one  of  those  ill 
winds  which  blows  good  to  some  came  on  in  the  shape 
of  another  epidemic  of  typhoid,  and  she  took  charge.  She 
wrote  me: 

"I  am  working  night  and  day,  and  my  own  people  are 
believing  in  me  again.  Those  who  would  not  speak  to  me 
when  I  came  back  are  taking  me  to  their  homes."  Within 
a  year  my  wife  and  I  were  invited  to  her  wedding  to  her 
husband,  and  the  two  children  were  bridesmaids;  and  some 
years  later  we  were  invited  to  the  wedding  of  one  of  the 
daughters  by  the  happy  parents  and  asked  to  bring  our 
children  and  stay  a  month ! 

I  could  tire  my  readers  with  these  queer  recitals,  but  will 
add  here  only  the  following  two:  Three  lads  grew  to  man- 
hood in  a  small  Mississippi  town;  were  schoolmates,  play- 
mates, and  friends.  One  of  these  came  to  man's  estate 
with  good  habits,  steady  purpose,  and  the  promise  of  a  use- 
ful career.  The  other  two  drifted  as  idlers  into  dissipation 
and  went  rapidly  on  the  downward  way. 

As  Joseph  Cook  was  closing  his  store  late  one  night  his 

two  acquaintances  with  drawn  pistols  robbed  him  and  his 

safe,  pocketed  all  the  cash,  and  then  they  told  him  they 

were  going  to  leave  the  country  for  good,  and  he  must  go 

28  42s 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

with  them  a  few  miles  on  the  way  to  insure  their  getting  a 
good  start.  A  mile  or  two  from  the  village,  arriving  at  a 
point  where  the  road  led  by  a  slash  or  shallow  swamp,  they 
conducted  him  through  this  some  two  hundred  yards  from 
the  roadway,  where  the  water  was  from  three  to  four  inches 
in  depth,  and  where  the  swamp-grass  was  tall  enough  to 
hide  a  dead  man,  and  there  they  put  five  thirty-eight-caliber 
bullets  into  his  body.  The  next  to  the  last  shot  broke  his 
lower  jaw,  and  as  he  spun  half  around  from  the  force  of  the 
impact  a  fifth  bullet  went  in  at  his  backbone,  cut  the  spinal 
cord  in  two,  and  he  dropped  limp  into  the  water.  Fortu- 
nately (or  unfortunately),  he  fell  on  his  back,  his  head  rest- 
ing on  a  tuft  of  grass,  which  kept  the  water  from  strangling 
him  to  suffocation.  They  stood  over  him  for  a  few  minutes, 
placed  a  hand  on  his  chest  to  be  sure  of  their  work  (while 
he  with  wonderful  resolution  held  his  breath),  and  then 
these  conscienceless  villains  went  to  their  homes  and  went 
to  bed! 

Only  two  of  the  wounds  had  done  serious  injury.  The 
one  through  the  spine  had  produced  complete  paralysis  be- 
low the  middle  of  the  back,  but  people  can  live  a  long  time 
with  paralysis.  The  wound  of  the  jaw  was  bleeding  pro- 
fusely. It  was  August  and  warm,  and  Cook  was  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves when  shot.  Convinced  that  he  would  not  live  till 
daylight,  he  took  of  the  blood  in  his  mouth  and  with  his 
finger-tip  wrote  on  his  shirt-front,  "Jim  Smith  shot  me.'" 
When  the  news  of  the  robbery  and  disappearance  spread 
through  the  village  scouting  parties  followed  the  roads  and 
scoured  the  woods  in  all  directions,  and  about  nine  o'clock 
of  the  next  day  some  one  from  the  roadway  heard  groans 
off  in  the  slash,  and  took  Cook  out,  still  alive.  A  few 
months  later  his  brother.  Dr.  Cook,  of  Hattiesburg,  Mis- 

426 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

sissippi,  came  with  him  to  my  hospital.  The  bullet  lodged 
in  the  mouth  was  removed,  and,  cutting  away  the  bones, 
I  extracted  some  bits  of  lead  from  the  spinal  cord ;  but  this 
had  been  completely  divided,  and  his  cure  was  impossible. 
He  died  thirteen  months  after  he  was  shot.  The  murderers 
were  immediately  arrested,  and,  unfortunately,  were  not 
lynched.  The  law  of  Mississippi  did  not  recognize  as  a 
murder  a  death  unless  it  took  place  within  twelve  months  of 
the  date  of  the  act  which  caused  it.  The  maximum  penalty 
was  twenty  years  in  the  penitentiary,  and  this  worthy  pair 
escaped  within  two  years  and  were  never  recaptured.    But, 

What  exile  from  himself  can  flee 

To  zones  though  more  and  more  remote? 

Still,  still  pursues  where'er  I  be 

The  blight  of  life,  the  demon,  Thought! 

The  following  extraordinary  coincidence  relates  to  the 
case  of  the  late  Captain  John  M.  Sloane,  of  Pontotoc,  Mis- 
sissippi. In  1890  I  received  a  letter  from  Captain  Sloane. 
At  the  battle  of  Chickamauga,  in  September,  1863,  a  piece 
of  shell  or  canister  had  torn  away  his  chin  and  a  good  part 
of  the  lower  jaw,  laying  open  the  larynx,  or  windpipe,  and 
the  oesophagus,  or  gullet,  and  from  that  day  he  had  lived 
on  liquid  or  semi-liquid  nourishment,  carried  into  the 
stomach  through  a  tube  introduced  into  the  fistulous  open- 
ing of  the  gullet.  From  his  description  and  a  photograph 
I  was  convinced  nothing  could  be  done  which  would  justify 
the  expense  of  a  trip  to  New  York.  As  a  matter  of  curiosity, 
I  wrote  to  a  doctor  friend  for  information.  Captain  Sloane's 
record  as  a  soldier  and  citizen  was  excellent,  but  by  reason 
of  his  mutilation  he  had  had  a  hard  time  to  make  a  living. 
His  wife  had  died;  he  was  trying  to  support  himself  and  an 
invalid  daughter  by  clerking  in  a  grocery  store,  but  was 

427 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

really  in  distress.  The  doctor  stated  in  answer  to  a  further 
inquiry  that  he  believed  the  old  soldier  and  the  daughter 
could  make  a  living  if  they  had  a  modest  capital  to  estab- 
lish a  small  grocery  business.  I  wrote  to  the  mayor  of 
Pontotoc  that  if  the  citizens  there  would  raise  a  certain 
sum  I  would  raise  as  much  from  friends  in  New  York,  and 
this  was  done,  and  the  captain  and  his  daughter  were  very 
happy  in  their  new  venture. 

In  1896  there  was  to  be  a  dedication  of  the  Chickamauga 
National  Park,  and  all  the  surviving  veterans  of  both  armies 
who  took  part  in  that  battle  were  invited  to  a  fraternal 
reunion.  General  Wheeler  had  requested  me  to  go  there 
and  locate  the  marker  for  the  shaft  it  was  proposed  to  erect 
to  show  where  our  command  had  operated,  and  I  wrote  to 
the  captain  at  Pontotoc,  who  agreed  to  meet  me  in  Chat- 
tanooga at  a  time  and  place  named.  In  the  enormous 
crowd  and  great  confusion  which  prevailed,  I  failed  to  find 
the  old  soldier,  and  with  a  doctor  friend  I  drove  in  his  buggy 
to  the  battle-field,  some  ten  miles  away.  At  noon  we 
reached  Crawfish  Spring  for  luncheon.  The  doctor's  wife 
had  prepared  a  generous  basket,  and  as  we  were  arranging 
its  contents  in  a  shady  nook  close  by  the  spring  I  observed 
two  men  in  Federal  uniform  who  were  seated  near  by.  In 
the  spirit  of  the  occasion  I  went  up  to  them  and  said: 
"Boys,  you  look  hungry.  Won't  you  come  over  here  and 
share  our  luncheon  with  us?"  Seeing  we  had  an  abundance 
for  all  and  meant  what  we  said,  they  accepted. 

One  of  these  men  was  a  Mr.  S.  S.  Rich,  then  of  Moberly, 
Missouri ;  the  other  was  from  Indiana,  but  his  name  escapes 
me.  Rich  was  originally  from  Kentucky,  and  had  served 
in  a  famous  Union  brigade  from  that  state.  Naturally,  as 
we  sat  there  our  thoughts  and  conversation  turned  back  to 

42S 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  thrilling  scenes  we  had  witnessed  on  those  three  great 
days  in  September,  1863,  during  which  this  bloody  battle 
had  lasted.  I  had  fallen  asleep  the  Sunday  night  after  the 
battle  closed  right  by  this  spring  within  a  few  feet  of  where 
we  now  were,  and  was  only  awakened  by  the  hot  sun  shining 
in  my  face.  I  told  them  the  story  of  the  dead  man  I  found 
sitting  up  against  a  tree  in  a  dense  thicket  not  far  away 
and  of  my  speaking  to  him,  thinking  he  was  only  wounded 
and  alive.  Then  Mr.  Rich  remarked:  "I  saw  the  most 
remarkable  wound  in  this  fight  that  I  ever  came  across. 
In  one  of  our  charges,  passing  over  the  line  the  Confederates 
had  occupied,  I  trod  over  a  man  whose  jaw  and  throat  were 
torn  away,  and  the  blood  and  froth  were  flowing  from  the 
opening.  He  seemed  to  be  choking  to  death  in  his  own 
blood,  and  I  stopped,  caught  him  by  the  arm,  and  dragged 
him  a  few  yards  and  left  him  so  that  his  head  and  neck 
hung  down  over  the  root  of  a  tree,  and  went  on."  I  asked 
him  if  he  knew  what  troops  composed  this  part  of  the  Con- 
federate Hne,  and  he  said:  "Yes;  we  captured  some  of 
Lowery's  Mississippi  regiment  right  there." 

I  had  in  my  pocket  a  photograph  of  Captain  Sloane  and 
his  graphic  description  of  where,  when,  and  how  he  was 
wounded,  and  in  it  he  had  stated  that  some  one  had  dragged 
and  placed  him  so  the  blood  would  not  strangle  him  as  he 
lay  helpless.  As  he  belonged  to  Lowery's  regiment  and 
received  this  very  unusual  wound  at  that  time  and  place, 
I  knew  I  was  talking  to  the  Union  soldier  who,  even  in  the 
hurry  and  excitement  of  one  of  the  bloodiest  battles  in  his- 
tory, had  been  humane  and  thoughtful  enough  to  do  a  kind- 
ly act  to  a  helpless  enemy.  I  pulled  out  the  picture,  showed 
it  to  him,  and  asked  him  to  read  the  letter.  When  he  fin- 
ished it  he  said:   "My  God!     That's  the  man."     The  In- 

429 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

diana  man  remarked:  "Why,  that  must  be  the  man  I  saw 
in  the  train  coming  down  here.  He  was  showing  us  how 
he  took  a  drink  by  placing  a  tube  in  the  open  place  in  his 
throat  and  pouring  the  water  into  a  funnel." 

The  brave  old  captain  died  a  few  years  later.  He  and  I 
had  never  met.  I  had  met  the  man,  however,  to  whom  he 
really  owed  the  prolongation  of  his  life. 

After  all,  the  world  is  not  so  large,  as  these  various  experi- 
ences in  my  own  life  attest;  and  since  it  deals  with  that 
sentiment  of  brotherhood  which  should  prevail  in  our  rela- 
tions one  with  another  in  my  profession,  I  shall  add  this 
minor  incident. 

As  I  was  returning  from  one  of  my  visits  to  my  old  home 
in  Alabama  there  boarded  the  train  at  Knoxville  a  dis- 
tinguished-looking gentleman  who  was  given  the  section 
adjoining  mine.  Seeing  him  reading  a  book  on  appendicitis 
by  Dr.  George  Fowler,  of  Brooklyn,  I  concluded  he  must  be 
a  surgeon,  and  in  the  spirit  of  fellowship  which  permits 
familiarity  among  doctors  I  said,  "You  are  a  doctor?"  He 
looked  up  rather  rebukingly  and  replied:  "You  are  mis- 
taken; I  am  not."  I  continued,  "Then  you  have  appendi- 
citis." In  some  surprise  he  said:  "Well,  yes;  I  have." 
My  next  remark  was:  "You  are  on  the  right  track  to  get 
cured.  The  author  of  that  book  is  one  of  the  best  surgeons 
in  the  world,  and  you  can  do  no  better  than  to  go  to  him." 
To  this  he  said:  "Thank  you.  That  may  be  true,  but  I'm 
going  to  another  surgeon  in  New  York  City,  a  Dr.  John  A. 
Wyeth."  At  this  I  took  a  card  from  my  case  and  handed 
it  to  him,  and  he  exclaimed,  "This  seems  like  Providence!" 
It  turned  out  lucky  in  more  ways  than  one.  Several  weeks 
after  this  Dr.  Fowler  came  to  dine  with  us,  and  in  the  course 
of  conversation  he  remarked:   "Mrs.  Wyeth,  I  have  a  good 

430 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

story  to  tell  you  on  the  doctor.  My  cousin,  who  was  com- 
ing North  on  the  Southern  Railway,  happened  to  be  seated 
near  him  in  the  Pullman  car  at  Knoxville  when,  hearing  my 
name,  he  pricked  up  his  ears  and  overheard  a  passenger 
who,  he  found  out,  was  Dr.  Wyeth,  trying  to  persuade  an- 
other passenger  who  had  appendicitis  to  come  to  me  for 
operation.  My  cousin  said,  'Cousin  George,  isn't  it  rather 
unusual  for  such  a  thing  as  that  to  happen  in  your  pro- 
fession?' and  I  replied:  'It  isn't  any  too  common;  but  it 
can  happen.'"  I  thought  again  of  what  a  little  world  it  is. 
It  had  not  occurred  to  me  that  my  friend  would  ever  know 
of  this  accidental  meeting  nearly  a  thousand  miles  from 
New  York. 


XXIX 

RIGHT-HANDEDNESS,  OR  DEXTRAL  PREFERENCE  IN  MAN — 
ALSO  SOME  SUGGESTIONS  AS  TO  THE  VALUE  OF  ENFORCED 
AMBIDEXTERITY 

In  our  village  school  in  Alabama  the  boys  and  girls  were 
together.  Before  the  village  grew  to  be  a  town — when  it 
was  still  "the  Settlement,"  and  there  were  not  more  than 
a  couple  of  dozen  children  big  enough  to  go  to  school — we 
all  sat  together  on  the  benches  in  the  one-room  log  cabin 
with  its  huge  fireplace,  its  single  door,  and  one  slit  of  a  win- 
dow, made  by  sawing  out  six  feet  of  two  logs.  Each  day 
we  took  our  places  in  the  order  in  which  we  arrived.  When 
civilization  began  to  overtake  us  our  parents  built  a  new 
school-house  out  of  planks.  It  was  the  first  frame  house 
I  had  ever  seen,  and  it  was  so  large  and  fine-looking  we  chil- 
dren used  to  gaze  at  it  in  wonder.  There  was  room  enough 
inside  to  put  four  of  the  old  log  cabins  under  the  new  roof; 
so  we  moved  into  it,  tore  the  old  thing  down,  and  cut  it 
up  for  firewood.  How  natural  it  is  to  cut  an  old  thing  down 
and  use  it  for  firewood!  The  new  house  had  done  away 
with  the  fireplace,  for  cast-iron  stoves  were  coming  into 
fashion. 

The  teacher  no  longer  blew  a  horn  or  shouted  to  call  us 
in,  but  tapped  a  great  big  bell.  One  night  two  "big  boys" 
— real  smart  boys — played  a  trick  on  him.  They  climbed 
to  the  belfry  and  greased  the  bell  with  tallow,  and,  as  it 

432 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

wouldn't  ring  the  next  morning,  everybody  was  late  at 
school.  I  have  often  thought  of  how  startled  the  good 
teacher  must  have  felt  when  he  pulled  the  rope  that  time, 
and  instead  of  the  usual  reverberating  clang  there  came  to 
his  ears  from  on  high  the  dead,  cracked-pot  sound  of  a 
tallowed  bell!  When  the  scholars  found  out  what  had 
happened  we  all  laughed;  but  it  was  a  short  laugh.  When 
the  bell  wouldn't  ring  nothing  else  was  left  but  to  look  up 
the  old  horn  and  blow  the  assembly.  The  Day  of  Judg- 
ment will  not  be  more  solemn  than  this  day  was  for  the 
boys,  who  were  lined  up  presently  to  be  catechized.  Of 
course,  the  girls  were  not  under  suspicion.  They  took 
their  seats  on  their  side  of  the  school-room  and  looked  on 
with  especial  sympathy,  each  for  the  boy  she  liked  best 

The  teacher,  whose  expression  suggested  the  dark  cloud 
which  rolls  up  as  the  advance-guard  of  a  cyclone,  took 
down  from  over  the  blackboard  a  well-seasoned  six-foot 
hickory  withe  and  remarked:  "Boys,  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing  who  greased  the  bell.  Some  one  or  more  of  you 
are  guilty,  and  unless  the  culprit  owns  up  I'm  bound  to 
get  him,  for  I'm  going  to  thrash  all  of  you."  Just  as  we 
were  wishing  we  had  put  on  two  pairs  of  trousers  and  pad- 
ded our  backs,  two  heroes  stepped  out  of  line  and  said 
they  did  it  and  they  were  very  sorry,  and  they  looked  it. 
Then  the  good  teacher  replaced  the  hickory  and  told  them 
if  they  would  scrape  the  tallow  off  and  chop  wood  and 
build  the  fires  for  two  weeks  he  would  let  them  off.  The 
bell  rang  out  the  next  morning  as  if  nothing  had  happened, 
and  for  a  fortnight  at  least  the  school-house  was  warm. 

Civilization  also  took  our  benches,  upon  which  we  had 
sat  and  squirmed  and  slid  so  long  that  they  were  as  smooth 
and  as  sleek  as  ice,  and  so  comfortable,  and  gave  us  single 

433 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

seats  and  desks,  the  boys  ranged  in  long  rows  on  one  side 
and  the  girls  on  the  other.  It  seemed  a  long  way  across  to 
where  oiir  sweethearts  sat,  but  somehow  or  other  we  man- 
aged to  elude  the  watchful  eye  of  the  teacher — there  was 
never  more  than  one — and  established  a  wireless  system 
of  communication  which  antedated  Marconi. 

But  the  time  for  real  enjoyment  was  the  half-hour  al- 
lowed for  recess  or  play  in  the  middle  of  the  morning 
session.  The  school-house  was  built  on  the  backbone  of 
a  high  ridge  which  overlooked  the  village.  At  recess  one 
side  of  the  ridge  was  the  girl's  playground;  the  other  was 
for  the  boys.  We  were  not  allowed  on  their  side,  and  of 
course  they  could  not  overstep  the  boimds  of  modesty  and 
cross  over  to  us.  I  wonder  if  our  teacher  forgot  that  there 
was  a  summit  to  that  ridge,  a  place  where  the  two  sides 
came  together,  a  medio  tutissimus  ibis,  as  Virgil  puts  it? 
If  he  did,  we  didn't.  The  law  of  natural  selection  was  more 
inexorable  than  the  law  of  gravitation;  for  all  of  us  boys 
and  girls  alike  gravitated  uphill  and  found  a  common 
playgroimd  and  worlds  of  that  glorious  fun  and  frolic  which 
are  the  essence  of  existence  in  that  period  of  adolescence 
when  Nature  is  asking  the  question,  "What  next?"  On 
top  of  this  ridge,  one  day  when  I  was  twelve  years  old,  I 
came  face  to  face  with  the  question  of  ambidexterity. 

I  had  a  sweetheart,  and  her  name  was  "Mugg."  Can 
you  imagine  in  all  the  category  of  names  one  more  sugges- 
tive of  ughness — I  am  almost  tempted  to  say  of  "Muggli- 
ness  ?"  But  * '  Mugg  "  was  only  her  nickname.  It  was  short 
for  Margaret,  and  she  was  the  prettiest  girl  in  school — to 
me.  On  this  eventful  day,  as  soon  as  we  had  rushed  out 
of  our  prison-house  and  disappeared  from  the  teacher's 
vision  in  the  thick  foliage  of  our  respective  hillsides,  we 

434 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

scrambled  to  our  common  playgroimd  in  the  summit  woods. 
Our  play  on  this  occasion  was  bending  the  tough  young 
hickory  saplings  down  to  near  the  ground  and  seating  our 
sweethearts  and  ourselves  on  them  as  "ridey-horses." 
Mugg  was  so  much  prettier  than  any  other  boy's  sweet- 
heart that  I  determined  she  should  have  the  biggest  and  the 
highest  "ridey-horse"  of  all.  I  had  not  then  learned  of  the 
huge  Trojan  horse  which  brought  disaster  to  Ilium. 

There  stood  in  our  grove  a  slender,  graceful,  tight-bark 
hickory  sapHng,  toughest  of  all  tough  timber,  bending  but 
never  breaking,  towering  fully  thirty  feet  to  its  topmost 
bifurcation.  There  was  no  other  like  it,  as  there  was  no 
other  girl  like  Mugg.  I  made  up  my  mind  I  would  bend  it 
to  the  groimd  and  she  should  have  it;  and  to  the  top  I 
climbed,  twisted  the  terminal  twigs  around  my  hands  and 
wrists,  and  swung  boldly  out  into  space  toward  the  ground. 
I  had  struck  the  wrong  hickory.  Alas!  had  this  been  the 
only  time!  Instead  of  swooping  to  the  earth  in  a  long, 
graceful  curve,  amid  the  plaudits  of  an  admiring  throng, 
with  an  occasional  glance  at  Mugg  and  her  approving  smile, 
as  I  had  anticipated,  I  bent  that  obstinate  sapling  not  more 
than  three  feet  from  the  top  in  fish-hook  shape,  and  there 
I  dangled,  helpless  and  hopeless,  almost  as  much  so  as  if  I 
had  had  a  noose  about  my  neck  and  was  hanging  from  a 
gibbet.  As  the  sense  of  failiire  and  chagrin  flashed  over 
me  then  I  would  gladly  have  exchanged  for  the  exitus 
lethalis  of  the  hangman.  But  this  was  not  to  be.  I  could 
not  clamber  back,  and  the  arc  of  the  circle  described  by  the 
bending  tree-top  had  a  diameter  beyond  the  swing  of  my 
wildly  gyrating  feet. 

I  suggested  with  earnestness  and  feeling  that  half  a 
dozen  boys  climb  up  and  add  sufficient  weight  to  bring 

435 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

us  all  down  in  safety  together;  but  the  responses  were 
negative.  One  of  my  rivals  thought  I  looked  so  much 
better  where  I  was  than  on  ^the  ground  that  I  had  better 
stay  up  there.  Another  informed  me — and  the  remark 
was  entirely  original,  and  from  the  giggle  which  floated  up 
to  my  height  must  have  been  considered  witty  at  their 
level — that  if  I  would  only  let  go  the  ground  would  catch 
me.  It  did.  On  the  way  down,  slashing  through  the 
limbs,  I  struck  one  which,  as  in  some  of  those  confusing 
problems  in  fractions,  changed  the  numerator  into  the  de- 
nominator and  landed  me  head  foremost,  with  the  right 
hand  thrust  out  to  catch  the  brunt  of  the  fall — and  here  is 
where  dextral  preference  comes  in. 

Had  I  been  ambidextrous — which  is  a  paradox,  for  I 
could  scarcely  have  two  right  hands — I  would  have  extended 
both  anterior  extremities,  and,  dividing  their  combined  re- 
sistance to  body  weight  and  momentum,  would  have  es- 
caped a  Colles's  fracture  of  the  radius  at  the  right  wrist. 
Our  home  doctor  called  it  a  sprain,  and  there  was  no  re- 
position, or  "setting."  The  subsequent  pain  and  incon- 
venience were  so  severe  and  prolonged  that  I  acquired  the 
habit  of  using  the  left  hand  and  arm,  and  in  the  course  of 
years  I  became  fairly  ambidextrous.  Appreciating  the  value 
of  ambidexterity  in  surgery,  for  several  years  while  studying 
and  teaching  anatomy,  I  worked  almost  wholly  with  the 
left  hand,  imtil,  in  performing  an  operation,  whichever 
member  was  more  convenient  or  useful  I  used  without 
thought  as  to  whether  it  was  right  or  left. 

Man  is  the  only  one-sided  animal.  A  careful  study  of 
apes  has  convinced  me  that  they  have  no  manual  prefer- 
ence. I  could  narrate  many  interesting  experiences  with 
those  near-human  creatures  which  at  least  amused  and  in- 

436 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

structed  me,  and  might  you,  but  time  and  space  forbid  all 
but  one.     This  is  it : 

To  the  Sixty-fourth  Street  Zoo,  when  my  good  friend,  Mr. 
Conkling,  was  curator,  there  was  presented  a  very  vicious, 
imperious,  and  combative  black  monkey  from  (I  think) 
Brazil.  His  much-used  tail  was  very  long,  fully  as  long  as 
his  body;  and  I  never  saw  any  of  the  tribe  which  did  so 
much  business  with  that  part  of  its  anatomy  as  this  lively 
fellow.  He  was  turned  loose  in  the  big  cage,  in  which  there 
was  already  a  general  assortment  of  different  kinds  of 
monkeys.  Having  never  seen  anything  just  like  the  new- 
comer, the  original  tenants  with  agile  unanimity  sprang, 
jumped,  or  clambered  to  the  loftiest,  most  remote  and  in- 
accessible portions  of  the  cage,  glanced  downward,  and 
chattered  away  as  if  they,  too,  were  on  the  tower  of  Babel. 
The  Brazilian,  from  his  resting-place  on  the  floor,  was  not 
long  in  completing  an  inventory  of  stock  before  he  began 
to  have  fun.  He  chased,  chewed,  and  spanked  everything 
in  that  cage  until  it  looked  as  if  he  would  die  laughing, 
while  the  others,  tired  out  and  scared  half  to  death,  were 
clinging  to  the  bars  at  the  roof  and  panting  like  lizards  in 
August.  His  final  stunt  was  to  carry  the  smaller  ones  to 
the  greatest  height  and  drop  them  to  the  floor;  and  then 
the  keeper  intervened  and  placed  the  black  Amazonian  all 
by  himself  in  another  cage  immediately  adjoining. 

It  took  the  others  several  days  to  recover  from  the  panic, 
and  for  a  week  or  two  whenever  he  approached  the  parti- 
tion bars  his  neighbors  found  much  to  interest  them  at  the 
other  end  of  their  abode. 

Time  is  said  to  bring  its  revenges,  and  Talleyrand  (or  some 
one  probably  not  so  smart)  is  said  to  have  said  that  "All 
things  are  possible  to  those  who  wait" — and  this  without 

437 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

reference  to  tips.  At  all  events,  in  an  iinfortunate  moment 
the  long  black  tail  found  itself  projected  between  the  bars 
and  a  good  long  way  within  the  general  monkey  cage  next 
door,  while  he  who  owned  it  slept.  Now,  monkeys  have  a 
language.  There  is  no  doubt  about  this  in  my  mind,  for 
I  have  observed  them  closely  and  with  great  interest.  One 
major  monkey  who  had  suffered  much,  both  in  body  and 
spirit,  at  the  hands  and  teeth  of  this  interloper,  stealthily 
approached  the  sleeping  Saul,  grabbed  the  nethermost  tip 
of  the  infringing  tail  between  his  teeth,  reinforced  his  grip 
with  the  clutch  of  both  hands,  and  pulled  away  vigorously 
until  the  butt-end  of  his  enemy  was  firmly  jammed  against 
the  partition  bars.  Verb  sap!  The  other  monkeys  fell 
on  him  in  showers,  and  as  many  as  could  took  hold,  and  the 
denizen  of  the  upper  Amazon  was  theirs,  or  at  least  a  good 
long  part  of  him.  When  his  cries  brought  help,  all  the  hairs 
of  his  caudal  extremity  were  off,  and  a  half-dozen  of  his 
distant  cousins  were  chewing  on  all  that  was  left  down  to 
the  bones.  With  his  raw  tail  looking  like  an  Essex  Street 
show-window  sausage  to  which  the  mice  had  found  access, 
he  was  the  most  forlorn  and  dejected  creature  I  have  ever 
seen. 

I  have  never  seen  in  any  animal,  even  those  which  move 
about  wholly  or  In  part  on  their  posterior  or  inferior  extremi- 
ties, as  the  kangaroo  or  the  various  members  of  the  bird  or 
fowl  kingdom,  any  demonstration  of  preference  for  one  side 
more  than  the  other. 

The  genus  homo  is  strongly  one-sided  and  right-sided. 
There  are  several  hundred  of  these  to  one  left-handed. 
What  is  the  reason?  Is  it  custom,  with  the  added  influence 
of  heredity,  or  Is  there  an  anatomical  cause  ?  Let  us  begin 
at  the  beginning  and  try  to  interpret  the  meaning  or  the 

438 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

intent  of  the  great  Law.  In  the  earliest  recognizable  for- 
mative period  of  the  human  embryo,  the  cells  are  arranged 
in  rows  and  layers  on  each  side  of,  and  equal  in  nimiber  and 
size,  and  parallel  with  a  central  perpendicular  line — the  Hne 
of  fusion  or  union,  where  the  two  halves,  the  right  and  the 
left — merge  into  the  one  body.  The  cells  which  form  the 
two  halves  or  hemispheres  of  the  brain  are  balanced  on  the 
two  sides,  and  traveling  downward  we  find  the  two  eyes, 
the  two  fused  halves  of  the  nose,  the  cheeks,  ears,  two  halves 
of  the  tongue,  the  jaws,  the  thyroid  bodies  of  the  neck,  the 
bones,  arms  and  legs,  lungs,  kidneys,  and  all  the  organs  in 
pairs,  each  balancing  the  other. 

May  we  not  venture  from  this  to  opine  that  the  purpose 
of  creation  was  the  perfect  balance  of  power  and  of  function 
between  the  two  halves  which  w^ere  to  fuse  into  a  unit 
being  ? 

Studying  still  more  closely  the  process  of  gro\\^h  in  the 
earlier  stages,  we  find  further  justification  of  this  conclusion 
in  the  development  of  the  heart  and  the  circulatory  system. 
Now,  if  the  two  halves  of  the  body  are  to  be  equally  efficient 
they  must  of  necessity  be  equally  well  nourished,  and  the 
blood  is  the  great  conveyer  and  distributer  of  nutrition.  In 
the  embryo  the  heart  itself,  made  up  of  two  halves,  hangs 
like  a  plummet  in  the  middle  line,  and  springing  from  its 
base  are  a  right  and  a  left  aortic  arch,  the  two  curving  down- 
ward in  beautiful  symmetry  to  unite  below  in  one  common 
conduit  or  aorta.  Could  this  anatomical  arrangement  per- 
sist, is  it  not  fair  to  presume  that  each  half  of  the  brain 
and  each  upper  extremity  would  receive  an  equal  share  of 
nutrition,  or  a  proportion  so  nearly  equal  that  one  side 
would  not  declare  itself  superior  to  or  independent  of  the 
other?     We  know,  however,  that  it  does  not  persist.  Within 

439 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

the  first  few  months  of  intra-uterine  development  the  heart 
is  gradually  and  permanently  changed  from  a  perpendicular 
to  an  oblique  position,  and  from  its  normal  central  place  well 
over  into  the  left  side  of  the  chest.  As  this  is  occurring, 
one  of  the  two  original  aortic  arches  is  thrown  out  of  use 
and  ultimately  withers  up  into  a  useless  cord.  The  aortic 
arch  which  persists  is  twisted  semispirally  on  itself,  with 
such  disarrangement  of  the  heart  and  the  great  vessels 
passing  upward  to  the  brain  and  the  upper  extremities  that 
the  right  arm  gets  more  blood  than  the  left,  while  the  left 
half  of  the  brain — that  half  from  which  emanate  the  motor 
impulses  to  the  right  side  of  the  body — receives  a  larger 
supply  of  nutrition  than  its  fellow.  What  has  caused  this 
disarrangement  ? 

Dividing  the  chest  from  the  abdomen  is  a  transverse,  and 
in  the  embryo  a  rectangular,  partition  known  as  the  dia- 
phragm. In  contact  with  the  under,  or  abdominal,  surface 
of  this  partition  is  the  spleen  on  the  left,  and  its  opposing 
or  balancing  organ,  the  liver,  on  the  other  side.  In  the 
process  of  evolution  under,  in  all  probability,  changed  con- 
ditions of  ingestion  demanding  increase  of  function,  the  liver 
has  become  enormously  enlarged,  until,  instead  of  being 
equal  in  size  and  weight  with  the  spleen,  it  is  from  five  to 
seven  times  as  large  and  heavy.  In  finding  room  for  itself 
it  has  encroached  upon  the  right  side  of  the  chest,  and  has 
not  only  taken  up  the  room  for,  but  has  robbed  this  lung 
of  one  lobe.  Not  satisfied  with  this  act  of  vandalism,  it 
has  shoved  the  heart  far  over  to  the  left  side  and  thrown 
the  circulatory  apparatus  for  the  upper  part  of  the  body 
out  of  plumb.  No  doubt  the  wag  who  said  the  intruder 
should  be  divided  into  three  parts  because  he  was  "all  gall" 
had  a  prevision  of  my  theory  of  the  hepatic  cause  of  dextral 

440 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

preference  in  man.  When  I  was  making  a  study  of  this 
subject,  in  1878  and  1879,  I  weighed  the  two  halves  of  a 
number  of  brains  and  found  that  in  a  very  large  proportion 
of  cases  the  left  half  was  heavier  than  the  right. 

The  very  much  more  extensive  investigations  of  the 
Marylebone  Hospital  in  England  confirm  this  fact.  Bichat 
long  ago  concluded  that  the  specific  gravity  of  the  gray 
matter — the  thought  and  motion  originating  element  of  the 
brain — of  the  left  half  was  greater  than  that  of  the  right. 
That  the  two  halves  are  different  is  evident  in  comparison 
with  the  brain  of  animals.  In  examining  the  brain  of  the 
monkey  I  was  struck  with  the  perfect  symmetry  of  the 
various  right  and  left  convolutions,  a  condition  which  is 
not  present  in  the  brain  of  man.  The  result  of  all  this  is 
that  the  two  halves  of  our  brains  are  not  always  working 
actively  in  harmony  to  produce  the  full  complement  of 
brain  efficiency.  In  right-handed  persons  the  left  half  is 
in  general  more  alert  and  active.  In  moments  of  more  or 
less  complete  or  partial  mental  inertia,  as  not  infrequently 
occurs  when  the  blood  is  flooding  the  digestive  apparatus 
soon  after  eating,  certain  visual  impressions  will  be  caught 
by  the  more  alert  half — the  left — before  the  right  half  gets 
the  registration.  The  complete  mental  impression  can 
occur  only  then;  and  while  only  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of 
time  may  have  transpired  between  the  partial  and  com- 
plete registration,  there  is  a  confused  or  double  image. 
This  has  led  persons  who  are  over -spiritually  inclined  or 
superstitious  to  the  supposition  that  they  had  witnessed 
the  same  scene  or  occurrence  under  exactly  the  same  con- 
ditions at  some  other  time,  perhaps  in  some  other  existence. 
Had  both  halves  of  the  brain  been  acting  together  this 
could  not  have  occurred. 

29  441 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  two  halves  of  the  brain  may  be  compared  to  the  two 
horses  of  a  team.  If  they  are  well  matched  and  trained, 
they  move  off  and  pull  together  smoothly  and  satisfactorily. 
If  one  horse  is  drowsy  or  a  laggard,  the  other  gets  away 
first,  and  his  fellow  follows  in  a  clumsy  and  jerky  effort  to 
catch  up  and  pull  his  share  of  the  load.  What  we  know  as 
training  the  mind  is  intended  to  develop  these  two  halves 
of  our  brains  into  a  well-trained  and  alert  working  team. 
When  in  the  course  of  my  investigations  this  simple,  and 
to  me  satisfactory,  explanation  of  a  phenomenon  that  I  had 
often  experienced  came  to  me,  I  was  overjoyed  and  was 
under  the  impression  that  I  had  made  a  great  discovery. 
I  made  it  known  to  the  two  leading  professors  of  physiology 
in  New  York,  and  they  accepted  it  and  congratulated  me. 
Later,  to  my  great  disappointment,  I  learned  that  an  Eng- 
lish investigator  had  advanced  the  identical  theory.  Sic 
transit  gloria  mtmdi. 

That  we  often  fail  to  use  both  sides  of  our  brain  is  proved 
beyond  doubt  by  a  number  of  cases  of  aphasia,  or  the  loss 
of  the  power  of  framing  thoughts  into  words,  in  which 
cases  on  post-mortem  examination  the  disease  has  been 
actually  located  in  the  speech  center  on  the  left  side.  Al- 
though the  same  convolution  and  an  identical  gray  matter 
was  intact  on  the  right  side,  the  patient  could  never  learn 
to  use  that  center. 

In  my  opinion  ambidexterity  should  be  made  an  impor- 
tant feature  of  the  training  of  a  child.  It  should  be  begun 
at  birth  and  followed  up  persistently.  Children  of  strong 
hereditary  tendency  to  use  the  right  hand  to  the  neglect 
of  the  left  should  be  made  left-handed  by  compelling  them 
to  do  with  that  hand  all  or  most  of  the  things  a  single  hand 
is  usually  required  to  do.     It  is  very  advisable  that  they 

442 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

practise  writing  with  both  hands,  and  speak  and  pronounce 
the  words  as  formed.  They  will  then  of  necessity  be  exer- 
cising and  developing  for  use  the  speech  and  word  center 
of  the  side  from  which  the  motor  and  thought  impulses  are 
originating.  It  is  remarkable  how  thoroughly  one  may 
overcome  habits  of  heredity  and  become  expert  by  the  per- 
sistent use  of  a  once  discarded  or  slightly  used  member. 
A  friend  who  by  inheritance  and  practice  was  intensely 
right-handed  had  in  his  twentieth  year  his  right  arm  shot 
away  at  Chancellorsville.  He  learned  to  write  as  legibly  and 
rapidly  with  his  left  hand  as  he  had  written  with  the  pre- 
ferred member,  and  became  one  of  the  most  famous  shot- 
gun experts  in  the  South,  loading  and  firing  his  gun  without 
assistance. 

This  experience,  and  my  own  and  many  others',  proves 
that  notwithstanding  the  displacement  of  the  heart  the  loss 
of  the  balance  of  power  between  the  two  sides  is  not  so 
great  that  it  cannot  be  overcome  by  persistent  effort.  I 
had  very  little  trouble  in  making  my  youngest  boy  decidedly 
left-handed.  There  was  the  usual  insistence  and  preference 
for  the  dextral  member,  and  heredity  asserted  itself,  for  as 
far  back  as  we  could  trace  his  ancestry  on  both  sides  there 
was  not  an  exception  to  dextral  preference. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  carry  this  theory  into  practice 
through  several  generations  in  order  to  observe  how  much 
greater  brain  efficiency  might  be  developed.  I  prophesy 
that  while  the  Wyethian  brain  of  the  future  may  not  set 
the  Thames  on  fire,  it  will  easily  surpass  the  Wyethian 
brain  which  is  behind  this  feeble  effort. 


XXX 

OCCUPATIONS  OF  A  RETIRED  LIFE — BUILDING  THE  NEW  POLY- 
CLINIC HOSPITAL — PRESIDENT  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  ACAD- 
EMY OF  MEDICINE  AND  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  SOUTHERN 
SOCIETY — CHAIRMAN  OF  THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  OF 
THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB,  ETC. 

A  man's  life  may  be  likened  to  a  ball  of  snow,  which  as 
a  boy  he  starts  from  the  hilltop.  With  each  turn  it  grows 
larger  and  carries  more  weight;  but  the  farther  it  goes  the 
swifter  it  speeds,  imtil  control  is  lost,  and  nothing  can  stop 
it  until  it  reaches  the  bottom.  When  a  young  man  I  read 
a  novel  entitled  The  Occupations  of  a  Retired  Life.  It  was 
the  story  of  a  man  who  had  made  a  success  of  his  career  in 
the  metropolis,  and  at  sixty  turned  his  back  on  the  dis- 
tractions of  the  city  and  the  anxiety  of  affairs  and  found 

repose 

Far  from  the  madding  crowd's  ignoble  strife. 

I  had  fully  determined  that  when  I  reached  that  age  I 
should  give  up  my  own  and  other  people's  anxieties  and 
sorrows,  as  far  as  was  humanly  possible,  and  find  rest  and 
diversion  in  travel  and  in  cany-ing  out  certain  literary 
schemes  of  which  I  had  long  been  dreaming.  In  one  of 
Uncle  Remus's  stories,  the  Httle  listener,  brimming  over 
with  sympathy  at  the  disaster  which  befell  Bre'r  Possum, 
who  suffered  for  the  sins  of  Bre'r  Rabbit,  asks  why  it  is  that 
the  innocent  should  bear  the  burden  of  the  guilty,  and  the 

444 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

old  philosopher  replies:  "Lor',  chile;  de  rain  falls  on  de 
jess  and  de  unjess  dess  de  same,  and  tribberlation's  waitin' 
right  'round  de  corner  for  de  best  of  us!" 

Just  as  the  time  came  for  me  to  quit  work  I  looked  round 
the  corner — and  came  face  to  face  with  the  new  Polyclinic. 
I  have  told  of  the  failure  of  my  effort  in  1878  and  '79  to 
establish  in  New  York  City  an  ideal  Medical  College  with 
rigid  requirements  for  admission,  a  three-year  pregraduate 
and  a  two-year  postgraduate  course  of  study,  and  how  in 
1 88 1  the  postgraduate  feature  of  this  plan  resolved  itself 
into  the  Polyclinic,  and  how  from  year  to  year  this  pros- 
pered. It  had  now  outgrown  the  facilities  which  had  been 
originally  provided,  and  its  trustees  and  medical  staff  real- 
ized the  demand  and  necessity  for  new  and  larger  build- 
ings, a  greater  diversity  in  clinical  material,  and  a  more 
complete  laboratory  equipment. 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  an  officer  of  New  York  City 
connected  with  its  charities  informed  me  that  an  ambulance 
and  emergency  service  was  badly  needed  for  the  West  Side, 
and  asked  me  to  take  the  matter  of  building  a  new  hospital 
there  and  of  undertaking  that  service  to  our  trustees  for 
consideration.  With  a  unanimity  which  presaged  success 
the  trustees  and  medical  staff  voted  in  favor  of  the  under- 
taking. For  more  than  twenty-five  years  the  physicians 
connected  with  this  institution  had  labored  zealously  for 
its  development  without  remuneration,  and  had  not  only 
donated  all  its  earnings  to  the  improvement  of  its  facilities 
for  teaching,  but  from  time  to  time  had  subscribed  gener- 
ously for  this  purpose  from  their  private  means.  The  idea 
of  combining  with  our  work  as  teachers  this  great  hu- 
manitarian project  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  this  devoted 
body  of  professional  men  and  fired  them  and  the  trustees 

445 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

with  unremitting  zeal  for  its  accomplishment.  It  so  hap- 
pened that  I  had  won  the  esteem  and  friendship,  and  finally 
the  sympathy,  of  a  man  whose  genius  for  affairs  was  only 
second  to  his  broad  humanity  and  nobility  of  character. 
Several  years  before  he  had  at  my  request  become  a  mem- 
ber of  the  board  of  trustees,  and  as  a  trained  business  man 
had  carefully  informed  himself  not  only  of  the  philanthropic 
character  of  our  work  and  the  altruism  of  the  medical  staff, 
but — what  was  of  very  great  value  at  this  juncture — he 
found  out  that  he  was  connected  with  a  charity  that  was 
being  conducted  under  business  methods  and  was  capable 
under  judicious  management  of  being  self-supporting. 

On  the  morning  after  one  of  our  meetings  he  called  at  my 
office  and  handed  me  a  check  for  a  large  sum  payable  to 
myself.  It  was  enough  to  buy  a  great  plot  for  a  great 
hospital.  He  expressed  surprise  when  I  told  him  I  could 
not  accept  it.  I  said:  "Mr.  Clyde,  I  appreciate  what  this 
generous  gift  means.  It  is  your  vote  of  appreciation  of  the 
humanitarian  side  of  our  work,  and  of  confidence  in  me  and 
in  my  ability  to  perpetuate  the  ideals  associated  in  your 
mind  with  the  Polyclinic.  I  am  not  as  positive  as  I  would 
like  to  be  that  I  can  do  this,  and  I  ask  you  to  hold  this  check 
until  I  can  see  my  way  more  clearly." 

I  called  a  meeting  of  our  medical  board,  told  them  of  the 
possibilities  of  a  realization  of  the  new  hospital  and  school 
building,  and  asked  them  to  consent  to  a  plan  of  reorganiza- 
tion which  eliminated  every  suggestion  of  private  interest 
and  made  of  the  New  York  Polyclinic  Medical  School  and 
Hospital  a  public  institution  in  its  broadest  sense,  its  scien- 
tific and  medical  affairs  entirely  under  the  control  of  its 
professional  staff,  its  property  and  business  management 
under  the  control  of  a  board  of  trustees  composed  of  busi- 

446 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ness  men  responsible  under  the  laws  of  the  State  of  New 
York.  Encouraged  by  the  vote  adopting  the  recommenda- 
tion, I  secured  an  option  upon  an  ideal  site  in  West  Fiftieth 
Street,  and  two  months  later  I  submitted  the  perfected  re- 
organization to  my  good  friend.  He  does  not  know  to  this 
day  what  I  read  in  the  expression  of  his  noble  face  as  I 
went  over  the  details  of  what  our  medical  board  had  done. 
When  I  finished  he  said,  "This  is  a  great  work,"  and  as  he 
spoke  I  knew  my  dream  had  come  true.  Instead  of  buying 
high-priced  and  noisy  corner  property,  I  bought  twice  as 
much  in  area  for  the  same  money  in  the  middle  of  the  block, 
and  determined  to  build  high  for  light,  air,  and  freedom 
from  noise  and  dust.  All  of  this  was  an  innovation  in  hos- 
pital construction,  but  it  has  proved  a  great  attraction  and 
a  benefit. 

The  plans  were  drawn  by  the  architect  to  meet  the  wants 
which  our  combined  experience  of  thirty  years  in  the  old 
building  suggested  as  desirable.  Mr.  William  P.  Clyde's 
indispensable  aid  did  not  stop  with  his  generous  contribu- 
tion of  money,  but  at  our  earnest  solicitation  he  burdened 
himself  with  the  presidency  of  the  trustees  and  became  one 
of  a  building  committee  of  three.  Until  the  new  enterprise 
was  successfully  launched  he  filled  these  offices  in  such  a 
manner,  and  with  such  dignity  and  keen  observance  of  the 
business  proprieties,  as  to  win  from  all  the  lasting  esteem 
and  gratitude  which  followed  him  to  his  retirement. 

While  the  preliminaries  above  narrated  were  going  on 
there  came  to  the  Polychnic  another  stroke  of  great  good 
fortune,  and  to  me  the  further  evidences  of  the  thoughtful- 
ness  and  alertness  of  my  friends.  We  needed  still  more 
money.  When  was  there  a  time  when  a  hospital  did  not 
need  this  great  essential  to  philanthropy?     Will  there  ever 

447 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

be  a  time  when  those  who  have  it  will  have  the  good  sense 
to  bestow  it  where  it  will  bring  the  greatest  return  of  good? 
My  telephone-bell  rang  one  night  at  a  late  and  unusual 
hour.  I  recognized  the  voice  of  a  dear  friend  and  colleague, 
Dr.  D.  Br\^son  Delavan.  He  said:  "One  of  my  former 
pupils  has  just  left  my  office.  He  came  to  tell  me  that  a 
relative,  a  lady  of  means,  had  expressed  a  willingness  and 
desire  to  give  a  handsome  sum  of  money  to  some  deserving 
philanthropy.  I  have  asked  him  to  get  in  touch  with  you." 
By  a  strange  coincidence  a  letter  from  Dr.  J.  W.  Brannan, 
President  of  Bellevue  and  Allied  Hospitals,  brought  me  the 
same  information  in  the  morning's  mail.  I  lost  no  time 
in  getting  in  touch  with  the  yoimg  practitioner,  and  went 
at  once  to  ■Mr.  Clyde,  and  he  and  I  called  upon  the  lady 
in  question. 

Mr.  Clyde  had  been  her  father's  friend,  and  she  wor- 
shiped the  memory  of  her  father,  himself  a  leader  among 
New  York's  great  and  philanthropic  business  men.  In 
this  interview  I  met  one  of  the  most  remarkable  women  it 
has  been  my  great  good  fortune  to  know,  that  rare  kind  of 
woman  whose  hand  and  heart  work  together  in  perfect 
unison.  She  listened  to  the  history  of  the  Polyclinic,  made 
her  own  analysis,  and  most  generously  joined  with  Mr. 
Clyde  in  the  noble  purpose.  With  two  such  able  and  ap- 
preciative friends  and  champions  as  Mrs.  Helen  Hartley 
Jenkins  and  Mr.  William  P.  Clyde  the  completion  of  the 
new  building  was  made  certain,  and  the  perpetuation  of  a 
great  educational  and  humanitarian  enterprise  assured. 
Many  others  contributed  to  this  consummation,  and  deserve 
and  have  grateful  appreciation ;  but  as  long  as  the  scientific 
and  practical  training  of  physicians  in  this  great  school  may 
add  to  the  blessings  of  mankind,  and  as  long  as  the  thou- 

448 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

sands  upon  thousands  who  find  there  the  means  of  relief, 
these  two  unselfish  beings  must  be  recorded  as  first  among 
those  who  made  it  possible. 

Self-reliance  begets  optimism,  and  this  develops  that  qual- 
ity of  hope  which  is  said  to  spring  "eternal  in  the  human 
breast."  I  have  always  had  an  abiding  faith  in  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  a  good  cause.  The  only  real  setback  to  this 
conviction  was  the  failure  to  establish  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy. For  some  no  doubt  excellent  and  satisfactory  rea- 
son Providence  ruled  otherwise;  but,  being  the  son  of  a 
lawyer,  in  my  heart  of  hearts  I  filed  an  exception.  Now,  the 
Polyclinic  Hospital  with  its  ambulance  service  differs  from 
the  Southern  Confederacy  in  one  important  particular — 
viz.,  it  is  established.  The  great  hospital  was  built  by  op- 
timism, and  so  was  the  emergency  service.  We  accepted 
the  great  responsibility  for  the  City  of  New  York  and 
agreed  to  open  it  at  a  certain  date  in  the  near  future — and 
this  when  we  had  not  a  single  ambulance  nor  a  hundred  dollars 
toward  the  price  oj  the  three  we  required,  and  these  must  he 
automobiles,  tool  But  my  Presbyterian  upbringing  taught 
me  that  Faith  might  move  a  mountain,  especially  when 
giant  powder  was  mixed  with  it.  My  dear  father  would 
have  advised  prayer  without  ceasing.  My  Spartan  mother 
would  have  added,  "Some  prayer,  but  don't  forget  the 
powder." 

Very  soon  after  accepting  the  service,  as  I  was  coming  out 
of  the  Union  League  Club  building  in  the  late  afternoon 
I  overheard  a  friend,  whom  I  had  known  quite  intimately 
for  many  years,  scolding  the  door-man  for  permitting  his 
automobile  to  be  sent  away  without  first  notifying  him. 
As  chairman  of  the  executive  committee  of  the  club, 
desirous  of  keeping  the  peace  and  of  shielding  as  well  as  I 

449 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

might  a  faithful  servant,  I  made  Hght  of  the  oversight,  and, 
going  up  to  my  really  good-natured  and  generous  friend, 
I  said:  "Don't  worry  over  it,  Costello.  You  can  go  home 
in  my  machine."  He  was  placated  enough  to  smile  at  this, 
and  said:  "I  didn't  know  you  had  an  automobile."  I  told 
him  I  had  never  been  able  to  afford  that  luxury,  when  he 
said:  "Well,  you  deserve  to  have  one,  and  you  ought  to 
have  it."  My  reply  was,  "I  don't  care  so  much  about  one 
for  myself  as  for  my  hospital";  and  then  he  said  so  quickly 
that  it  nearly  took  my  breath,  "Do  you  really  need  an  am- 
bulance?" Laying  my  hand  over  the  region  of  the  left 
fifth  rib,  I  replied  in  an  affectation  of  emotion  which 
he  saw  through:  "Go  slowly,  my  old  friend.  I  have 
heart  disease."  He  handed  me  a  big  check  the  next 
afternoon,  and  I  had  one  ambulance.  I  needed  two 
more. 

A  week  later  my  old  war-time  comrade  and  loyal  friend, 
Dr.  William  M.  Polk  (son  of  that  General  Leonidas  Polk 
who  gave  his  life  to  the  South  at  Kenesaw  Mountain), 
telephoned  me  that  a  patient  of  his  wished  to  give  a  Packard 
automobile  ambulance  to  some  hospital,  and  he  had  recom- 
mended the  Polyclinic.  This  machine  came  in  good  time, 
and  with  it  a  third,  the  gift  of  Mr.  Joseph  Milbank,  another 
of  the  many  wealthy  and  thoughtfully  generous  citizens  of 
this  great  city,  which  with  all  of  its  rush  and  strain  for 
achievement  and  (as  many  assert)  for  money,  is  ever  ready 
with  open  hand  and  heart  to  help  any  cause  known  and 
shown  to  be  worthy.  Three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand 
people  live  within  our  ambulance  district,  and  on  one  "field 
day  "  in  1913  we  treated  in  the  hospital  forty-five  accident 
cases. 

As  a  kind  of  postscript  to  the  Polychnic  Hospital  con- 

450 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

struction  I  must  add  an  experience  which  goes  to  confirm 
the  judgment  of  Robert  Bums  that 

The  best-laid  schemes  o'  mice  and  men 
Gang  aft  a-gley. 

If  I  have  a  soft  spot  in  my  heart  for  any  particular  race, 
it  is  for  the  negro.  "Mack,"  the  runaway  slave  my  father 
bought,  was  my  first  friend.  He  cared  for  me  as  a  child 
as  tenderly  as  he  afterward  did  for  his  own;  and  his  wife, 
"Mammy  Tildie,"  was  next  to  our  mother  for  my  sisters 
and  myself.  No  one  who  has  not  lived  in  this  affectionate 
relationship  to  the  best  of  that  race  can  appreciate  the  feel- 
ing which  prevailed.  When  I  was  planning  this  great  hospital 
I  determined  to  have  two  small,  neat  wards  set  apart  for 
colored  men  and  women,  where  they  could  be  exclusive 
and  away  from  the  possibility  of  wounded  sensibilities  by 
reason  of  color  and  race  prejudice.  The  very  first  patient 
admitted  to  the  new  hospital  was  a  negro  lad,  who  came 
accompanied  by  his  father,  w^ho  took  the  boy  back  home, 
refusing  to  let  him  go  into  a  colored  ward.  I  wrote  the 
father,  saying  how  sorry  I  was;  that  I  was  from  the  South 
and  was  naturally  desirous  of  helping  any  member  of  his 
race.  He  wrote  in  reply  that  he  might  have  known  I  was 
a  Southerner,  for  nobody  else  but  a  man  from  that  country 
would  come  up  North  building  "Jim  Crow"  wards  in  a 
hospital ! 

In  1906  I  was  elected,  without  opposition,  President  of 
the  New  York  Academy  of  Medicine,  to  serve  for  two  years, 
and  re-elected  in  igo8,  four  years  in  all.  In  the  sixt3-five 
years  of  the  Academy's  history  only  five  of  its  presidents 
had  served  for  more  than  one  term,  and  to  the  date  of  my 
second  term  sixteen  3^ears  had  elapsed  since  this  extraor- 

451 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

dinary  honor  had  been  conferred.  The  presidency  of  the 
New  York  Academy  of  Medicine  is,  in  my  opinion,  an  of- 
fice second  to  none  in  importance  in  medical  affairs  in 
the  United  States.  While  the  great  national  organization, 
the  American  Medical  Association,  covers  a  wider  field 
and  deals  in  large  measure  with  the  most  important  scien- 
tific and  technical  problems  in  medicine  and  in  working 
with  equal  zeal  for  the  advancement  of  the  profession  and 
for  the  cause  of  humanity,  it  also  deals  largely  with  public 
affairs,  and  with  what  we  must  of  necessity  term  "medical 
politics,"  and  in  this  respect  occupies  a  field  entirely  apart 
from  the  Academy  which  stands  solely  for  medicine  in  its 
scientific  aspect. 

From  the  day  of  its  foundation  the  Academy  has  advanced 
steadily  in  its  one  fixed  purpose — to  become  a  center  for 
scientific  medicine,  from  whose  rostrum  the  great  discoveries 
which  medical  research  is  constantly  making  and  the  results 
of  world-wide  experience  in  the  prevention  and  treatment 
of  disease  and  injury  may  be  first  announced  to  its  fellows 
and  the  profession,  and  through  these  to  the  world  at  large. 
It  is,  therefore,  essential  that  the  presiding  officer  should 
keep  closely  in  touch  with  all  that  is  progressive  in  our 
science  and  art  and  strive  to  give  it  expression  through  the 
Academy. 

The  selection  of  men  eminent  in  science  not  only  in  our 
own  country,  but  from  all  over  the  civilized  world,  and  the 
assignment  of  subjects  for  consideration  in  the  various  sub- 
divisions of  medicine  is  no  light  task,  and  it  is  wholly  left 
to  the  presiding  officer.  In  addition  to  the  strictly  medical 
programme  for  the  profession  the  Academy  has  instituted  a 
regular  series  of  free  public  lectures,  largely  attended  by  the 
laity.     In  1908  the  limit  of  membership  was  reached,  and 

452 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

there  were  so  many  applicants  that  the  constitution  was 
amended  in  order  to  extend  the  Hst,  and  it  became  neces- 
sary to  enlarge  the  lecture-room  and  library  facilities.  A 
series  of  general  meetings  was  held,  speeches  were  made, 
great  enthusiasm  prevailed,  and  two  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  dollars,  the  amount  needed  to  purchase  all  the 
additional  property  required,  was  raised,  bringing  the  actual 
value  of  the  Academy's  holdings  to  approximately  three- 
quarters  of  a  million  dollars,  and  assuring  the  early  comple- 
tion of  the  new  Academy.  During  my  term  of  office  the 
number  of  bound  volumes  in  the  library  was  84,820,  and 
there  were  46,000  unbound  publications.  The  weekly  and 
monthly  periodicals,  printed  in  every  civilized  language, 
numbered  1520. 

While  serving  my  first  term  of  two  years  in  the  presidency 
of  the  Academy  I  was  also  elected  President  of  the  New 
York  Southern  Society,  a  very  popular  and  influential  social 
organization,  made  up  of  men  who,  coming  from  the  South- 
em  states,  have  made  New  York  City  their  home.  Life  in 
a  great  city,  where  the  struggle  for  existence  and  advance- 
ment is  so  exacting  of  the  hours  of  daylight,  has  necessitated 
the  formation  of  this  and  kindred  societies,  as  the  New 
England,  made  up  of  Yankees  or  their  descendants;  the 
St.  Andrew's,  composed  exclusively  of  Scotchmen;  the  Vir- 
ginia, Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  Alabama,  and  many  other  such 
organizations,  which  hold  meetings  at  frequent  intervals 
and  spend  the  evenings  in  delightful,  friendly  intercourse. 
It  is  like  going  home  again  to  attend  these  dinners  and  re- 
ceptions, to  meet  old  comrades  in  arms,  or  college-mates, 
or  their  children,  and  hear  the  latest  news,  or  talk  over  old 
times.  As  the  presiding  officer  of  each  of  these  societies 
is  usually  invited  formally  as  the  guest  of  honor  of  all  the 

453 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

others,  any  one  who  can  Hve  through  these  gastronomic  and 
speechmaking  tests  sees  a  very  interesting  side  of  metropol- 
itan Hfe.  I  stood  two  years  of  it  and  enjoyed  it,  and  give 
full  credit  for  the  physical  ability  to  stand  it  to  the  reserve 
digestive  energy  stored  up  in  my  three  years'  experience 
in  the  Confederate  army,  during  which  period  there  was 
such  complete  gastro-intestinal  repose.  No  one  could  pass 
through  this  particular  experience  and  not  be  impressed  with 
the  fact  of  how  little  of  the  real  progressive  New  York,  the 
New  York  that  is  "doing  things,"  was  bom  within  its  limits. 
I  recall  one  notable  occasion  when  President  Taft,  who 
had  just  been  elected,  was  the  guest  of  the  North  Carolina 
Society.  The  president  of  this  society  was  Walter  H.  Page, 
our  present  ambassador  to  England.  As  president  of  the 
Southern  Society,  to  which  the  old  North  State  Society  be- 
longed, I  had  the  other  place  of  honor,  and  sat  during  the 
dinner  and  evening  next  to  Mr.  Taft.  As  the  presiding 
officer  of  the  meeting  was  busy  with  his  duties  for  most  of 
the  evening,  it  gave  me  an  excellent  opportunity  to  size 
up  the  President-elect  of  the  United  States,  and  I  was  very 
favorably  impressed  with  Mr.  Taft.  A  number  of  persons 
came  to  shake  hands  or  speak  to  him  in  the  course  of  the 
evening,  and  one  was  an  old  college  chum.  Leaning  over 
me,  he  whispered  loud  enough  for  me  to  hear  distinctly: 
"Bill!  I  guess  this  is  the  last  time  I  can  call  you  'Bill'" — 
this  was  before  the  inauguration — "but  it  has  to  go  now 
before  you  get  into  the  White  House."  Before  he  could  get 
the  balance  of  what  he  had  in  mind  framed  into  words 
the  genial  guest,  holding  on  to  his  friend's  hand,  said: 
"Tom,  the  White  House  won't  make  any  difference  to  you; 
and  when  you  come  there,  if  you  dare  to  call  me  anything 
else  than  'Bill,'  I'll  throw  you  through  a  window." 

454 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  president  ever  tried  harder  to  do 
his  duty  without  regard  to  his  personal  interest  than  did 
Mr.  Taft.  It  is  just  as  safe  to  assert  that  none  ever  failed 
so  signally  to  satisfy  anybody.  In  the  olden  days  down 
South,  when  any  one  was  eminently  successful  and  "swept 
the  deck"  in  gambling  on  a  horse-race  or  a  chicken-fight, 
or  on  Colonel  W.  R.  W.  Cobb  being  elected  to  Congress, 
Uncle  Dan,  the  negro  oracle  and  commentator  of  our 
coimty,  was  wont  to  say,  "He  hit  'em  a-comin'  and  a-gwine." 
The  converse  was  true  of  President  Taft,  who  missed  every- 
thing both  ways  and  ended  his  political  career  in  a  mud- 
slinging  contest  with  an  opponent  who  not  only  owned  a  mill, 
but  was  ambidextrous  besides.  How  much  more  dignified 
it  would  have  been  to  take  bravely  the  stab  of  Brutus  under 
the  dome  of  the  Senate!  It  was  the  late  Benjamin  F. 
Butler,  of  Massachusetts — and  New  Orleans — famous  and 
infamous  on  one  side  and  the  other  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line,  who,  after  having  retired  from  one  such  contest  so 
bespattered  that  his  nearest  relative  could  not  have  recog- 
nized him,  said,  "Never  again  wiU  I  throw  mud  with  a  man 
who  owns  a  mill!" 

The  only  innovation  I  effected  in  the  Southern  Society 
was  the  foundation  of  a  charity  fimd  which  imder  subse- 
quent able  administrations  has  grown  to  a  very  considerable 
sum.  It  was  while  active  in  the  interests  of  this  deHghtful 
organization  that  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  man  from 
Virginia,  then  President  of  Princeton  University,  who  im- 
pressed me  profoimdly  with  the  beHef  in  his  great  ability 
and  prospective  prominence.  I  was  so  taken  with  this 
idea  that  I  called  on  a  very  intimate  friend,  the  late  William 
M.  Laffan,  Esq.,  whose  ownership  of  the  New  York  Sim, 
coupled  with  his  wonderful  ability  as  a  writer  and  his  in- 

455 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

flexibility  of  purpose  when  he  made  up  his  mind  that  some- 
thing should  be  done,  gave  him,  in  my  opinion,  a  very  great 
influence  in  public  affairs.  I  asked  him  to  dine  with  me 
and  Woodrow  Wilson,  and  said  to  him,  "I  want  you  to 
meet  a  man  who  is  big  enough  to  be  the  Democratic  nominee 
for  President."  This  was  in  1907.  With  this  in  mind,  and 
being  nothing  if  not  practical,  Laffan  suggested  that  I  invite 
Mr.  Thomas  F.  Ryan,  another  member  of  the  Southern 
Society,  whose  successful  ventures  in  the  world  of  finance 
had  brought  him  into  great  national  prominence  and  made 
him  a  power  in  dictating  the  policy  of  the  Democratic  party. 
Mr.  Wilson  stayed  at  our  home  for  the  night,  and  it  was  to 
me  a  notable  occasion,  as  I  sat  until  one  o'clock  a  close 
listener  to  the  conversation  of  these  three  men,  each  facile 
princcps  in  his  sphere.  At  a  late  hour  Elihu  Root,  then 
Secretary  of  State,  joined  the  party,  and  of  course  added 
to  its  brilliancy.  As  far  as  Woodrow  Wilson  in  his  relation 
to  national  affairs  was  concerned,  "the  pear  was  not  yet 
ripe."  He  did  not  put  it  this  way  exactly,  but  his  keen 
discernment  told  him  the  hour  had  not  yet  struck,  for  I 
heard  him  say  to  William  M.  Laffan  that  he  was  then  so 
deeply  interested  in  the  affairs  of  Princeton  University  that 
any  suggestion  of  his  entering  the  field  of  politics  was  for 
the  moment  distasteful.  His  time  was  to  come  in  191 2, 
and  I  had  the  honor  to  be  chairman  of  the  medical  depart- 
ment of  the  campaign  which  resulted  in  his  election. 

My  membership  in  the  Union  League  Club  came  about 
in  rather  a  queer  way.  Immediately  after  the  war  and 
during  the  bitter  years  of  the  reconstruction  period  the 
politics  of  this  strong  organization  seemed  to  me  to  be  so 
radical  and  so  unjust  in  sustaining  the  attitude  of  the 
"bloody-shirt- waving"  wing  of  the  Republican  party  toward 

456 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

the  South  that  I  could  but  feel  a  natural  resentment.  Ir, 
the  course  of  time  the  best  men  of  this  party  saw  the  in- 
justice of  the  reconstruction  measures  and  repudiated  them, 
and,  with  the  long  years  of  peace  and  reconciliation,  prac- 
tically all  feelings  of  bitterness  had  disappeared.  It  so 
happened  that  I  had  a  great  many  intimate  personal  friends 
in  this  club;  and  J.  Henry  Harper,  Esq.,  of  the  well-known 
publishing  firm  of  Harper  &  Brothers,  asked  me  to  let  him 
nominate  me  for  membership.  This  was  done.  As  the  time 
for  voting  on  my  candidacy  came  near  it  occurred  to  me 
that  an  ex-Confederate  soldier,  whose  natural  leaning  and 
training  had  been  about  as  far  away  from  what  the  Union 
League  Club  represented  as  it  could  be,  could  never  pos- 
sibly be  elected  unless  it  were  under  a  misapprehension. 
To  make  this  impossible  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Frank  Montague, 
chairman  of  the  committee  on  nominations,  and  to  the 
president,  Mr.  Cornelius  N.  Bliss,  to  the  effect  that  I  had 
been  reared  in  the  South,  and  had  served  to  the  close  of 
the  war  in  the  Confederate  army,  had  never  voted  any- 
thing but  a  Democratic  ballot  until  Mr.  Bryan's  heresies 
compelled  me  to  vote  for  McKinley;  that  I  had  more 
friends  in  the  Union  League  Club  than  any  other  in  New 
York  City;  that  it  was  the  only  club  I  wanted  to  be  a 
member  of,  but  however  much  I  desired  this  I  could  not 
afford  to  come  in  under  a  misapprehension  or  with  a 
political  collar  on.  When  my  friends  got  news  of  this  letter, 
most  of  them  thought  it  best  to  withdraw  my  name,  but 
Harry  Harper  said  he  would  take  the  chance  if  I  would ;  and, 
as  I  had  a  leaning  toward  taking  chances,  we  stood  pat. 
A  friend  who  was  present  at  the  meeting  of  the  committee 
told  me  that  the  chairman  read  the  letter  aloud,  and  re- 
marked with  a  good  deal  of  feeling  that  the  Union  League 
30  457 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Club  needed  in  its  membership  a  Confederate  soldier  who 
could  write  such  a  letter,  which  sentiments  the  president 
indorsed,  and  I  was  unanimously  elected.  This  ended  the 
Civil  War  for  the  Union  League  and  the  new  member. 

The  most  gratifying  feature  of  this  incident  is  that  the 
members  of  this  club  seem  to  have  conspired  to  show  me 
every  possible  consideration,  ofhcial  and  otherwise.  As  a 
token  of  their  confidence  I  was  placed  upon  the  executive 
committee  and  chairman  of  this  board  in  the  management 
of  the  affairs  of  one  of  the  strongest  social  and  political  or- 
ganizations in  America,  of  which  nearly  every  President  of 
the  United  States,  from  Lincoln  down,  has  been  a  member. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  I  felt  highly  honored  and  fully 
appreciative  of  this  great  distinction.  When  the  people  of 
the  South  and  the  North  get  together  and  know  one  another 
they  will  forget  that  there  was  ever  a  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line. 

When  the  Club  gave  Mr.  Taft  a  brilliant  reception  in 
191 1,  I  was  made  chairman  of  the  committee  of  arrange- 
ments, and  my  first  assistant  was  General  McCook,  one  of 
the  famous  "fighting  McCook"  family  of  Ohio,  at  whom 
I  had  had  the  pleasure  of  shooting  more  than  once,  and  by 
whom  I  had  more  than  once  been  chased.  On  this  occasion 
the  General  saluted  me  as  his  superior  in  rank  and  asked, 
"What  are  the  orders  from  the  old  Rebel?"  I  said:  "Fall 
in  behind  me,  Yank — and  it's  not  the  first  time,  either; 
for  it  was  a  McCook  that  captured  me."  So,  hand  in  hand, 
we  ancient  foemen  walked  up  to  pay  our  respects  to  the 
President  of  our  United  States. 


PART    II 


FOUNDING   THE   POLYCLINIC 

The  founding  of  the  New  York  Polyclinic  Medical  School 
and  Hospital  in  1881,  which  marked  the  introduction  of 
systematic  postgraduate  medical  instruction  in  America, 
was,  if  not  the  chief,  at  least  an  important  factor  in  the 
great  movement  which,  starting  at  that  period,  has  revolu- 
tionized and  carried  to  a  degree  approaching  perfection 
the  teaching  and  practice  of  medicine  and  surgery  in  the 
United  States.  The  idea  of  establishing  a  postgraduate 
course  of  study  came  into  my  mind  as  a  result  of  m}^  own 
necessities.  I  was  graduated  in  March,  1869,  from  the 
Medical  Department  of  the  University  of  Louisville,  after 
attending  two  sessions  of  lectures  of  not  quite  seven  months 
each. 

Recognized  as  one  of  the  oldest  and  best-known  of  the 
medical  colleges  in  the  United  States,  the  course  of  study 
and  the  standard  of  requirements  then  prevailing  in  that 
institution  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  American  methods 
at  that  period.  There  was  no  entrance  examination.  Any 
white  male  who  had  mastered  the  rudiments  of  English 
was  eligible.  Neither  Latin  nor  Greek  was  essential.  The 
division  of  subjects  was:  anatomj^,  physiology,  surgery, 
medicine,  obstetrics,  chemistry,  and  materia  medica.  Anat- 
omy was  thoroughly  taught  in  the  lectures,  supplemented 
by  dissecting-room  work  of  a  high  class.     In  physiology 

461 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

there  were  no  laboratory  exercises,  no  practical  demonstra- 
tions of  the  living  structures  nor  of  the  functions  of  the 
normal  organs.  The  teaching  of  surgery,  medicine,  and 
obstetrics  was  almost  wholly  didactic.  When  an  operative 
clinic  was  given  it  was  witnessed  at  such  a  distance  from 
the  subject,  with  so  much  interruption  of  vision,  that  it 
was  impossible  to  follow  closely  the  details  of  technique, 
without  which  the  lesson  of  a  demonstration  is  valueless. 

Not  once  in  my  two  years  of  study  did  I  enter  the  wards 
of  a  hospital  or  receive  instruction  by  the  bedside  of  a  pa- 
tient. I  witnessed  one  gynecological  clinic  and  examined 
one  obstetric  patient.  I  did  not  witness  or  assist  at  a  single 
case  of  delivery.  Beyond  the  chemical  analysis  of  urine 
for  albumen  and  sugar  and  the  litmus  testing  reaction  I 
had  no  laboratory  drilling,  nor  did  I  look  through  a  micro- 
scope. In  proof  of  my  earnestness  of  purpose  and  close 
application,  I  may  add  that  during  the  two  years  of  study 
at  this  school  I  never  attended  a  theater  or  place  of  idling 
or  amusement,  and  when  not  in  the  lecture-room  I  was 
reading  or  dissecting. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  graduated  cum  laude  in 
March,  1869,  and  I  began  practice  in  my  home  village  of 
Guntersville,  Alabama,  in  April  of  that  year.  The  experi- 
ment lasted  through  six  weeks  of  the  most  trying  and 
humiliating  period  of  my  life.  In  that  time  I  performed  one 
surgical  operation,  under  the  guidance  of  my  good  preceptor. 
Dr.  James  M.  Jackson,  an  ex-army  surgeon,  treated  a 
case  of  lobar  pneumonia,  attended  one  delivery,  and  finally 
a  fatal  case  of  diabetes  mellitus.  Upon  the  death  of  this  pa- 
tient I  realized  that  I  needed  a  thorough  clinical  and  labora- 
tory training,  and  could  not  conscientiously  practise  without 
it.     The  story  of  how  the  means  to  this  end  were  secured 

462 


L 


»i    i<:     -ss'     I'',     mm 
I    «     i'     11     11 


rf«  -  t^iT't 


""'««!  i^=  3  5 


POLYCLINIC     MEDICAL     SCHOOL     AND     HOSPITAL 
341-351  WEST  FIFTIETH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

is  told  elsewhere.  I  came  to  New  York  City  in  1872.  To  my 
surprise  and  disappointment,  there  was  here  no  opportunity 
for  the  special  instruction  or  training  of  a  graduate,  except 
by  attending  the  lectures  in  common  with  undergraduates. 
As  this  was  the  best  I  could  do,  I  took  this  course  at  Bellevue 
Hospital  Medical  College,  and  was  graduated  ad  eundem 
in  March,  1873.  In  April  of  that  year  I  was  appointed 
assistant  demonstrator  of  anatomy  in  this  college,  where 
in  this  capacity  and  as  prosector  to  the  chair  of  anatomy 
and  assistant  to  the  professor  of  pathology  I  worked  until 
1877. 

I  had  never  lost  sight  of  the  conviction  brought  home 
to  me  by  my  unfortunate  experience,  that  the  most  perfect 
theoretical  education  coidd  not  properly  prepare  one  for 
the  practice  of  medicine  and  surgery  unless  supplemented 
by  a  thorough  practical  training,  under  expert  guidance, 
at  the  bedside  and  in  the  operating-room  and  laboratory; 
and  in  1877  I  undertook  to  organize  a  school  in  which  such 
training  could  be  secured. 

The  scheme  then  formulated  required  for  admission  a 
college  degree,  or  an  equivalent  classical  education,  to  be 
determined  by  a  preliminary  examination,  and  a  five-year 
term  of  study,  of  which  three  years  were  to  be  in  the  under- 
graduate and  two  in  the  postgraduate  or  clinical  depart- 
ment. I  submitted  this  plan  to  a  number  of  distinguished 
medical  men — among  whom  were  Doctors  J.  Marion  Sims, 
Willard  Parker,  Frank  H.  Hamilton,  and  A.  Jacobi.  All 
of  them  gave  it  their  hearty  approval.  On  account  of  the 
long  term  of  study  and  rigid  requirements  for  admission 
it  was  realized  that  in  competition  with  the  short-term 
colleges  such  an  institution  could  not  be  supported  by  stu- 
dent  fees;    and   these   eminent   men,   each   of  whom  had 

463 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

treated  me  with  marked  personal  consideration,  insisted 
that  an  endowment  sufficient  to  furnish  an  income  which 
would  assure  the  payment  of  current  expenses  was  a  sine 
qua  non.  For  three  years  I  tried  without  success  to  raise 
the  amount  deemed  necessary,  and  finally  in  the  early  win- 
ter of  1 88 1  I  abandoned  the  undergraduate  feature  of  the 
plan,  and  took  up  actively  the  organization  of  the  Polyclinic 
as  a  postgraduate  school.  Meanwhile  I  had  visited  Europe 
and  had  studied  the  methods  in  vogue  in  London,  Paris, 
Berlin,  and  Vienna. 

The  organization  was  begun  in  1881,  and  the  school  was 
opened  in  East  Thirty-fourth  Street  in  1882,  with  the  fol- 
lowing faculty  and  assignment  of  subjects: 

Department  of  Dermatology — Dr.  A.  R.  Robinson,  Dr.  E.  B.  Bronson. 
Department  of  Gynecology — Dr.  W.  Gill  Wylie,  Dr.  Paul  F.  Mund6. 
Department  of  Diseases  of  Children — Dr.  John  H.  Ripley,  assisted  by  Dr. 

L.  Emmet  Holt,  who  succeeded  him. 
Department  of  Laryngology — Dr.  Richard  Brandeis,  Dr.  Louis  Elsberg. 
Department  of  Ophthalmology — Dr.  David  Webster,  Dr.  Emil  Gruening. 
Department  of  Medicine — Dr.  James  R.  Leaming,  Dr.  E.  Darwin  Hudson. 
Department  of  Neurology — Dr.   Landon  Carter  Gray,  assisted  by  Dr. 

M.  Allen  Starr. 
Department  of  Stirgery — Dr.  J.  A.  Wyeth,  Dr.  A.  G.  Gerster. 
Department  of  Orthopedic  Surgery — Dr.  V.  P.  Gibney. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Dr.  Richard  Brandeis,  the  foreign 
appellation  of  "Poliklinik"  was  changed  to  ''Polyclinic," 
from  TToXvS  (many),  and  KXupe  (beds).  From  the  day 
our  doors  were  opened  the  success  of  postgraduate  instruc- 
tion was  assured,  and  it  has  become  a  permanent  feature 
of  medical  education.  As  before  stated,  it  is  based  upon 
the  recognized  fact  that  no  amount  of  theoretical  teaching 
in  an  undergraduate  college  can  turn  out  a  thoroughly 
equipped  practitioner. 

464 


VUTHOR,  TEACH  ^ 
GrGNITION    OF 

EMIN^ElslCE  AS 
t^.EOUNDER.AN: 
ilsl-IN'CHIEF\ 
llNSTITUTIGN 
E^.TIMQM1AL 
)-BY  THE 

:dical  sta] 

MXIV 


BUST    PORTRAIT    OF    DR.    JOHN    A.    WYETH,    UNVEILED   AT   THE 
POLYCLINIC    HOSPITAL,    MAY    I,    I914 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

While  a  hospital  intemeship  is  an  ideal  method  of  post- 
graduate training,  not  more  than  ten  to  twenty  per  cent. 
of  graduates  can  under  present  conditions  be  provided 
with  such  intemeships.  The  remaining  large  majority  must 
depend  for  their  training  upon  a  course  of  practical  study 
under  competent  specialists  in  the  various  departments  of 
medicine  and  surgery  in  a  school  which  is  part  of  a  general 
hospital  and  dispensary,  and  provided  with  all  the  laboratory 
facilities  for  analytic  work.  The  Polyclinic  Hospital,  with 
a  capacity  of  three  hundred  beds,  a  walking  clinic  of  between 
fifty  thousand  and  one  hundred  thousand  cases  per  year, 
has  in  addition  an  ambulance  and  emergency  service,  cover- 
ing a  district  in  New  York  City  which  includes  a  population 
of  three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand.  The  acute  medical 
and  surgical  cases  which  are  gathered  up  by  this  vast  service 
are  among  the  most  interesting  and  useful  features  of  its 
course  of  instruction. 

The  entire  course  of  study  is  divided  into  the  following 
departments:  Clinical  medicine  and  physical  diagnosis, 
diseases  of  the  digestive  system,  diseases  of  children,  diseases 
of  the  throat  and  nose  and  of  the  eye,  diseases  of  the  nervous 
system,  general  and  orthopedic  and  neurological  surgery, 
diseases  of  the  rectum,  genito-urinary  surgery,  diseases  of 
the  skin,  diseases  of  women,  obstetrics,  radiology,  electro- 
therapy, clinical  microscopy,  urinary  analysis,  practical  his- 
tology, and  pathology  and  bacteriology. 

In  the  department  of  internal  medicine  there  is  a  special 
laboratory  for  instruction  in  the  examination  of  stomach 
contents,  alimentary  discharges,  and  the  various  secretions 
and  excretions.  There  is  a  special  laboratory  in  the  depart- 
ment of  dermatology  and  in  general  medicine,  while  the 
main  laboratory  of  biology  is  thoroughly  equipped  for  a 

465 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

practical  training  of  the  practitioner  in  the  use  of  the 
microscope  and  in  chemical  analysis  and  the  study  of  the 
various  reactions. 

The  necessity  of  dividing  the  classes  into  small  sections 
is  recognized  as  the  essential  feature  of  thorough  post- 
graduate training,  so  that  those  interested  in  any  particular 
case  may  come  in  actual  contact  with  the  patients.  To 
this  end  seven  operating  and  three  different  medical  clinical 
rooms  are  often  utilized  at  the  same  hour.  Realizing  the 
greater  value  of  prolonged  and  continuous  attendance,  a 
special  course  is  arranged  in  which  the  practitioner  resides 
within  the  hospital  and  serves  on  the  assistant  interne 
staff.  To  the  date  of  this  writing,  in  19 14,  approximately 
twenty-five  thousand  graduates  of  medicine  and  surgery 
have  attended  the  clinics  and  courses  of  study  in  this 
institution. 


II 

LIGATION    OF   THE   EXTERNAL   CAROTID   ARTERY 

My  Essays  on  the  Surgical  Anatomy  and  Surgery  oj  the 
Common  External  and  Internal  Carotid  Arteries,  made  public 
in  1878,  established  as  an  accepted  operative  procedure  the 
ligation  of  the  external  carotid  artery.  Until  that  date  every 
text-book  on  surgery  in  the  English,  French,  or  German 
language  advised  the  application  of  the  ligature  to  the  com- 
mon trunk,  and  not  to  the  external  carotid,  in  all  lesions  within 
the  distribution  of  the  external  carotid  artery.  Within  two 
years  after  the  publication  of  these  essays  by  the  Ameri- 
can Medical  Association,  the  text-books  and  teachers  of 
surgery  had  condemned  the  old  operation  and  advised  the 
new  procedure.^  My  attention  was  attracted  to  this  sub- 
ject by  a  statement  made  by  my  teacher  in  surgery,  Pro- 
fessor Frank  H.  Hamilton,  while  I  was  a  student  in  Bellevue 
Medical  College.  In  advising  the  application  of  the  ligature 
to  the  primitive  carotid  he  gave  as  the  reason  that  the  ex- 
ternal carotid  artery  differed  from  all  the  other  arteries  of 
body  in  the  wide  variations  in  origin  and  irregularity  of  the 
arrangement  and  distribution  of  its  branches. 

Believing,  as  I  did,  that  there  could  be  no  exception  to 
the  law  of  development,  I  undertook  a  careful  study  of  this 
important  vessel,  in  the  course  of  which  I  made  one  hundred 

^  Prominent  among  the  great  surgeons  of  his  day,  and  among  the  first  to 
appreciate  the  value  of  this  operation,  was  the  late  Henry  B.  Sands,  Professor 
of  Surgery  at  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons. 

467 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

and  twenty-one  dissections  of  the  surgical  triangles  of  the 
neck,  measuring  accurately  with  rule  and  pointers  the 
points  of  origin  on  the  six  regular  branches — viz.,  the  superior 
thyroid,  lingual,  and  facial  anteriorly,  and  the  ascending 
pharyngeal,  occipital,  and  auricular  posteriorly,  from  the 
center  of  bifurcation  of  the  common  trunk  and  from  one  an- 
other. I  proved  that  this  vessel  followed  the  general  law  of 
development ;  that  the  range  of  origin  of  each  branch  was  so 
limited  and  the  variations  from  the  normal  so  slight  as  to 
offer  no  difficulty  or  danger  to  the  application  of  a  ligature 
at  any  point  in  the  course  of  this  artery. 

Extending  my  investigations  into  the  surgical  history  of 
these  vessels,  I  found  that  in  the  entire  records  of  surgery, 
searched  with  great  care,  the  external  carotid  artery  alone 
had  been  tied  for  lesions  within  its  distribution  only  sixty- 
seven  times,  with  a  mortality  ratio  of  four  and  a  half  per  cent. 
At  the  same  time  I  tabulated  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine 
cases  of  ligature  of  the  common  trunk,  of  which  two  hundred 
and  fifty-one  were  for  lesions  in  the  distribution  of  the  ex- 
ternal carotid  artery,  and  in  every  one  of  which  this  latter 
vessel  might  have  been  tied.  One  hundred  and  eight,  or 
forty-three  per  cent.,  died. 

Extending  these  researches  to  the  arch  of  the  aorta,  and 
the  other  great  vessels  springing  from  it,  and  desiring  to 
test  crucially  the  value  of  the  conclusions  arrived  at,  I 
entered  into  competition  for  the  annual  prize  of  the  Ameri- 
can Medical  Association  in  1878,  and  submitted  my  work 
as  a  single  essay. 

As  far  as  the  carotid  arteries  are  concerned,  this  was  the 
conclusion  reached  at  that  period: 

The  rate  of  mortality  after  the  ligature  of  the  common 
carotid  artery  was  forty-one  per  cent. 

468 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

After  ligature  of  the  external  carotid  the  death-rate  was 
four  and  a  half  per  cent. 

There  was  but  one  conclusion :  The  common  carotid  should 
never  he  tied  for  a  lesion  of  the  external  carotid  or  its  branches 
when  there  is  room  enough  between  the  lesions  and  the  bifurca- 
tion of  the  primitive  carotid  to  permit  the  ligature  of  the  external 
carotid. 

I  was  led  to  this  conclusion  not  only  by  the  comparison 
of  the  analysis  of  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine  cases  of 
ligature  of  the  common  trunk,  with  the  instances  in  which 
the  external  carotid  had  been  tied,  but  also  from  the  analysis 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty-one  dissections  of  these  vessels, 
made  to  determine  the  relations  of  these  arteries  and  their 
branches  to  one  another.  I  said  at  that  time :  "  It  would  be 
a  waste  of  time  to  cite  the  eminent  authorities  in  surgery 
who  advise  the  ligature  of  the  common  trunk  instead  of  the 
external.  The  teaching  and  practice  is  almost  universal. 
It  is  as  wrong  as  it  is  general,  as  false  as  it  is  dangerous.  It 
is  forty-one  per  centum  of  deaths  in  the  one  to  four  and  a 
half  per  centum  in  the  other." 

The  report  of  the  committee  on  the  prize  essays  was  as 
follows : 

Your  committee  to  determine  the  merits  of  prize  essays  would  re- 
spectfully report:  That  they  have  had  three  separate  papers  submitted 
to  their  inspection.  Two  of  these  papers  present  subjects  of  very  great 
interest,  and  show  original  research,  but  are  too  imperfect,  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  committee,  to  command  a  prize.  The  remaining  paper,  in 
the  judgment  of  your  committee,  is  fully  up  to  the  requirements.  Indeed, 
the  paper  is  so  elaborate  as  to  fill  a  large  space  in  the  volume  of  the 
Transactions  of  the  Association.  The  paper  should  be  considered  as 
twOy  and  not  as  one.  The  analysis  of  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine 
cases  of  operation  on  the  carotid  artery,  and  the  careful  and  minute  meas- 
urements of  the  artery  and  its  branches  in  one  hundred  and  twenty-one 
subjects,  showing  the  range  of  variation  and  the  percentage  of  the  same, 

469 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

followed  by  inferences,  bold  and  original,  naturally  constitutes  a  paper 
complete  in  itself.  Another  one  on  the  same  plan,  with  reference  to  the 
innominate  and  subclavian  arteries,  being  an  analysis  of  three  hundred 
cases  and  the  observation  of  fifty-two  subjects,  is  presented  to  us  in  such 
a  manner  that  we  may  consider  the  whole  as  one  prize,  or  they  may  com- 
pete for  both. 

Your  committee  believes  that  both  prizes  should  be  awarded  to  the 
two  essays  by  one  person.  The  motto  is,  "  Tenipora  miitantur,  et  nos  mida- 
mur  in  ill  is." 

E.  M.  Moore,  Chairman, 
Thos.  Lothrop, 
H.  R.  Hopkins, 
W.  W.  Miner. 
Buffalo,  New  York,  Jime  6,  1878. 

The  publication  and  wide  distribution  of  these  investiga- 
tions by  the  National  Association  added  materially  to  the 
immediate  general  acceptance  of  the  operation  of  ligation 
of  the  external  carotid  artery  which  now  prevails.  As  an 
indication  of  the  change  of  view  which  was  brought  about, 
the  following  is  quoted  from  the  American  edition  of  Sir 
Thomas  Bryant's  Manual  for  the  Practice  of  Surgery,  from 
the  chapter  devoted  to  this  subject: 

"In  this  connection  the  views  of  Dr.  John  A.  Wyeth,  of  New  York, 
deserve  great  attention ;  for,  in  his  prize  essays,  presented  to  the  Ameri- 
can Jvledical  Association  in  1878,  he  has  investigated  the  subject  of  liga- 
tion of  the  primitive  carotid  artery  and  its  branches  with  such  painstaking 
accuracy  that  his  paper  will  deservedly  become  classical.  He  has  col- 
lected and  analyzed  seven  hundred  and  eighty-nine  cases  of  ligation  of 
the  common  carotid  artery,  ninety-one  instances  of  ligation  of  the  ex- 
ternal and  eighteen  of  ligation  of  the  internal  carotid.  In  addition  he  has 
given  accurate  measurements  of  the  arteries  in  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
one  subjects,  showing  the  range  of  variation  and  the  position  of  branches. 
His  inferences  from  this  astonishing  amount  of  research  are  at  variance 
in  some  respects  with  the  surgical  teaching  and  practice  of  the  day;  but 
it  would  seem  that  the  profession  must  be  in  the  wrong  rather  than  he 
who  has  considered  the  subject  in  such  a  thorough  and  scientific  manner." 

In  the  practice  of  to-day,  under  modem  aseptic  condi- 

470 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

tions,  the  death-rate  after  dehgation  of  the  external  carotid 
artery  is  practically  nil.  I  have  tied  it  more  than  two  hun- 
dred times  without  secondary  hemorrhage  or  a  fatality.  In 
three  instances  the  catgut  ligature  was  applied  in  the  crotch 
of  bifurcation  and  included  in  its  grasp  the  superior  thyroid 
at  its  origin.^ 

1  The  following  literature  was  recognized  in  the  Original  Essays:  "Contri- 
butions to  Practical  Surgery,"  by  Dr.  George  W.  Norris,  of  Philadelphia;  an 
admirable  article  by  Dr.  Charles  Pilz,  "Zur  Ligatur  der  Arteria  Carotis  Com- 
munis"; "Ligature  of  the  Common  Carotid,"  by  Professor  James  R.  Wood; 
"Des  Eflfets  Produits  sur  I'Encephale,"  etc.,  by  Dr.  J.  Ehrmann;  a  "Prize 
Thesis  on  Ligature  of  the  External  Carotid  Artery,"  by  Dr.  Landon  R.  Long- 
worth;  "Zur  Ligatur  der  Arteria  Carotis  Externa,"  by  Dr.  Madelung;  "Medi- 
cal and  Surgical  History  of  the  War,"  by  Dr.  George  A.  Otis,  U.S.A. ;  "  Ligature 
of  the  Subclavian  Artery,"  by  Professor  Willard  Parker;  "Uber  Unterbin- 
dungen  und  Aneurysm  der  Arteria  Subclavia,"  by  Wilhelm  Koch;  and  a  mag- 
nificent paper  on  "Subclavian  Aneurism,"  by  the  lamented  Alfred  Poland. 


Ill 

BLOODLESS     AMPUTATION     AT     THE     HIP-JOINT     AND     AT     THE 

SHOULDER 

The  method  of  controlling  hemorrhage  in  so  formidable 
an  operation  as  removal  of  the  lower  extremity  by  amputa- 
tion and  disarticulation  at  the  coxo-femoral  joint  was  de- 
vised by  me,  and  first  performed  successfully  upon  a  living 
subject  at  the  New  York  Polyclinic  Medical  School  and 
Hospital  in  1889.  This  case  was  reported  in  the  New  York 
Medical  Record,  and  the  procedure  was  the  subject  of  a 
paper  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  American  Medical  Associa- 
tion at  Nashville,  1890. 

The  History  of  Surgery  contains  a  long  list  of  ingenious 
methods  in  the  effort  to  reduce  the  mortality  of  this  opera- 
tion, which  for  gunshot  wounds  in  the  American  Civil  War 
reached  the  high  mortality  ratio  of  ninety-three  per  cent.,  of 
which  Professor  John  Ashurst  in  his  great  work  on  surgery 
wrote  as  late  as  1881:  "The  removal  of  the  lower  limb  at 
the  coxo-femoral  articulation  may  be  properly  regarded  as 
the  gravest  operation  that  the  surgeon  is  ever  called  upon 
to  perform,  and  it  is  only  within  a  comparatively  recent 
period  that  it  has  been  accepted  as  a  justifiable  procedure. 
The  most  pressing  risk  is  that  of  hemorrhage." 

Dr.  Walter  Brashear,  of  Bardstown,  Kentucky,  in  a  case 
of  compound  fracture  of  the  femur  near  the  hip,  in  August, 
1806,  applied  a  constricting  tourniquet  to  the  limb  just  be- 

472 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

low  the  hip,  amputated  the  soft  parts  six  inches  beyond, 
tying  all  the  vessels  while  the  tourniquet  was  in  place,  then 
dividing  the  bone  at  this  level,  and  after  all  hemorrhage 
was  controlled  by  the  ligature  he  successfully  enucleated 
the  broken  particles  of  the  shaft,  together  with  the  head 
of  the  femur.  The  method  of  this  pioneer  attracted  no 
attention,  and  was  not  cited  in  the  text-books  on  surgery. 

The  first  real  advance  came  with  the  introduction  of 
Esmarch's  elastic  bandage.  In  the  Lancet,  1883  (Volume  I, 
page  897),  Jourdan- Lloyd  described  the  following  method: 
"A  strip  of  black  India-rubber  bandage  about  two  yards 
long  is  doubled  and  passed  between  the  thighs,  its  center 
lying  between  the  tuber  ischii  of  the  side  to  be  operated  on 
and  the  anus.  The  ends  are  drawn  tight,  one  in  front  and 
one  behind,  to  a  point  above  the  center  of  the  iliac  crest." 
By  this  method  there  was  secured  a  fair  degree  of  com- 
pression upon  the  external  iliac  artery. 

Trendelenburg  endeavored  to  improve  on  this  method 
by  adding  transfixion  with  a  single  strong  mattress-needle 
which  was  passed  in  front  of  the  neck  of  the  femur  and 
beneath  the  great  vessels.  A  rubber  cord  in  figure-of-eight 
fashion  was  carried  over  the  ends  in  front,  compressing  only 
the  anterior  and  most  vascular  portion  of  the  flap.  Four- 
neaux  advised  a  figure-of-eight  rubber  spica,  using  the  Es- 
march  bandage  in  practically  the  same  manner  as  in  the 
Jourdan-Lloyd  method. 

Richard  Volkmann  endeavored  to  control  hemorrhage  by 
elastic  circular  constriction  without  needles.  His  three  cases 
were  reported  in  the  Deutsche  Klinik  of  1868,  but  in  each 
case  a  preliminary  ligature  of  the  femoral  was  done.  That  his 
method  was  not  accepted  is  evident  in  the  fact  that  neither 
in  Billroth  and  Luecke's  Deutsche  Chirurgie,  in  the  Hand- 


31 


473 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

buck  der  Chirurgie  by  Von  Pitha,  the  works  of  Linhart, 
nor  in  the  Centralblatt  fur  Chirurgie  or  Klinische  Vortrage, 
of  which  Volkmann  himself  was  an  editor,  is  there  any  men- 
tion or  description  of  this  procedure,  I  had  never  read  or 
heard  of  Volkmann's  discarded  operation  until  several  years 
after  my  method  had  been  made  public  and  had  been  im- 
mediately and  generally  accepted  by  the  profession. 

Operation:  The  patient,  properly  prepared,  is  placed  with 
the  sacrum  resting  upon  the  corner  of  the  operating-table 
corresponding  to  the  member  to  be  removed.  The  sound 
limb  and  arms  are  wrapped  with  cotton  batting  and  other 
parts  of  the  body  well  protected  from  unnecessary  loss  of 
heat.  The  extremity  to  be  amputated  should  be  emptied 
of  blood  by  elevation  of  the  foot,  aided  by  the  Trendelen- 
burg posture,  and,  when  the  conditions  justify,  the  use  of 
the  Esmarch  bandage.  This  may  be  applied  commencing 
at  the  toes,  and  while  forcing  the  blood  into  the  trunk  it 
should  never  come  nearer  than  within  twelve  inches  of  the 
distal  margin  of  the  neoplasm  or  seat  of  disease.  In  cases 
of  infection,  where  varicosities  with  possible  thrombosis  are 
present,  and  after  injuries  with  extensive  destruction,  ele- 
vation and  gravitation  must  be  relied  upon  to  carry  the 
blood  from  the  part  to  be  removed  into  the  body.  While 
the  member  is  elevated  and  the  partial  Trendelenburg  posi- 
tion is  still  maintained,  and  before  the  Esmarch  bandage  is 
removed,  when  this  has  been  employed,  the  rubber-tubing 
constrictor  is  applied.  The  object  of  this  is  the  complete 
closure  of  every  vessel  above  the  level  of  the  hip-joint,  permitting 

the  disarticulation  to  be  completed  and  the  vessels  tied  without 
hemorrhage  and  before  the  tourniquet  is  removed. 

To  prevent  the  possibility  of  the  tourniquet  slipping,  I 
employ  two  strong  needles  or  skewers  of  steel  about  three- 

474 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

sixteenths  of  an  inch  in  diameter  and  eight  inches  long. 
One  is  introduced  one-quarter  of  an  inch  below  the  anterior 
superior  spine  of  the  ilium,  and  slightly  to  the  inner  or  cen- 
tral side  of  this  prominence,  and  is  made  to  traverse  super- 
ficially for  about  three  inches  the  muscles  and  deep  fascia 
on  the  outer  side  of  the  hip,  emerging  on  a  level  with  the 
point  of  entrance.  The  point  of  the  second  needle  is  thrust 
through  the  skin  and  tendon  of  origin  of  the  adductor 
longus  muscle  half  an  inch  below  the  crotch,  the  point 
emerging  an  inch  below  the  tuber  ischii.  The  points  should 
be  at  once  shielded  with  cork.  No  vessels  or  nerves  are 
near  or  are  endangered  by  these  skewers.  A  mat  or  com- 
press of  sterile  gauze  about  two  inches  thick  and  four  inches 
square  is  laid  over  the  femoro-iliac  artery  and  vein  near 
where  they  cross  the  brim  of  the  pelvis,  and  over  this  a 
piece  of  strong  rubber  tubing,  half  an  inch  in  diameter  when 
unstretched  and  long  enough  when  in  position  to  go  five 
or  six  times  aroiuid  the  thigh,  is  now  wound  very  tightly 
around  and  above  the  fixation  needles  and  secured.  If  the 
Esmarch  bandage  has  been  employed,  it  is  now  removed. 
In  the  formation  of  the  flaps  the  surgeon  must  be  guided 
by  the  condition  of  the  parts  within  the  field  of  operation, 
and  will  modify  the  following  method,  which,  when  possible, 
I  prefer:  About  six  inches  below  the  tourniquet  a  circular 
incision  is  made  down  to  the  muscles,  and  this  is  joined  by 
a  longitudinal  incision  commencing  at  the  tourniquet  and 
passing  over  the  trochanter  major.  A  cuff  that  includes 
everything  down  to  the  muscles  is  dissected  off  to  near  the 
level  of  the  trochanter  minor.  At  about  this  level  the  re- 
maining soft  parts,  together  with  the  vessels,  are  divided 
squarely  down  to  the  bone  by  a  circular  cut.  At  this  stage 
of  the  operation  the  central  ends  of  the  divided  femoral 

475 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

vessels  are  in  plain  view  and  should  be  tied  with  good-sized 
catgut.  This  done,  the  disarticulation  is  rapidly  completed 
with  knife  or  scissors,  by  lifting  the  muscular  insertions  from 
the  trochanters  and  digital  fossa,  keeping  very  close  to  the 
bone  and  holding  the  soft  parts  away  with  retractors. 

The  capsular  ligament  is  now  exposed  and  divided,  and 
by  forcible  elevation,  adduction,  and  rotation  of  the  fe- 
mur it  is  widely  opened,  the  ligamentum  teres  ruptured, 
and  the  caput  femoris  dislocated.  If  properly  conducted 
up  to  this  point,  not  a  drop  of  blood  has  escaped,  except 
that  which  was  in  the  limb  below  the  constrictor  when 
this  was  applied.  The  remaining  vessels  which  require  the 
ligature  should  now  be  sought  for  and  secured.  These  are, 
first,  the  saphena  vein,  which,  on  account  of  its  proximity 
to  the  main  trunk,  should  be  tied;  the  sciatic  artery,  which 
will  be  found  near  the  stump  of  the  sciatic  nerve;  the  obtu- 
rator, which  is  situated  between  the  stump  of  the  adductor 
brevis  and  magnus,  usually  about  half-way  from  the  center  of 
the  shaft  of  the  femur  to  the  inner  side  of  the  thigh,  the  ves- 
sel being  on  a  level  with  the  anterior  surface  of  the  femur ;  the 
descending  branches  of  the  external  circumflex,  two  or  three 
in  number,  usually  found  about  an  inch  and  a  half  outward 
and  downward  from  the  main  femoral  vessels  beneath  the 
rectus  and  in  the  substance  of  the  cruraeus  and  vastus  ex- 
ternus.  The  descending  branches  of  the  internal  circum- 
flex are  insignificant,  and  are  usually  found  on  the  level  of 
the  femoral  vessels  in  the  substance  of  the  adductor  longus, 
and  between  it  and  the  adductor  brevis  and  pectinaeus. 

In  tying  the  larger  femoral  vessels  I  make  it  a  rule  to  dis- 
sect both  the  superficial  and  deep  femoral  stumps  back  from 
one-half  to  three-quarters  of  an  inch,  so  that  I  can  apply 
the  ligature  behind  any  of  their  branches  which  may  have 

476 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

been  divided  close  to  their  points  of  origin,  and  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  include  the  large  veins  in  the  same  ligature  in 
order  to  save  time.  With  the  vessels  I  have  mentioned 
quickly  secured,  there  is  really  no  necessity  for  even  tem- 
porarily loosening  the  tourniquet.  If  the  operator  is  not 
sure  that  he  has  found  and  securely  placed  the  ligatures 
upon  these  larger  vessels,  it  is  a  simple  matter  to  loosen 
slowly  the  grasp  of  the  tourniquet  until  the  pulsation  of  the 
larger  trunks  is  perceptible. 

In  order  to  hasten  the  operation  and  stop  the  oozing  I 
introduce  a  snug  packing  of  sterile  ribbon-gauze  into  the 
cavity  of  the  acetabulum  and  the  space  between  the  muscles 
from  which  the  bone  has  been  removed,  leaving  one  end  of 
the  gauze  to  pass  between  the  flaps  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
moval. With  a  long,  half-carved  Hagedorn-Fowler  needle, 
armed  with  good-sized  catgut,  deep  mattress  sutures  are 
passed  through  the  stumps  of  the  divided  muscles  in  such 
a  way  that  large  masses  of  muscle  are  brought  tightly  to- 
gether when  these  sutures  are  tied,  including  two  to  four 
inches  in  the  grasp  of  each  suture.  The  needle  is  not  passed 
in  the  proximity  of  the  large  vessels  or  the  sciatic  nerve, 
but  in  all  other  directions  the  muscles  are  rapidly  quilted 
together.  This  effectually  and  rapidly  controls  all  oozing. 
The  pins  are  now  removed.  Nothing  remains  but  to  close 
the  flaps  with  silkworm  gut  sutures  and  apply  a  dressing 
of  sterile  gauze  held  snugly  in  place  by  a  figure-of-eight 
bandage  around  the  stump  and  the  pelvis. 

The  death-rate  after  amputation  at  the  hip-joint  by  this 
method  of  hemostasis  and  asepsis  is  reduced  now  to  about 
six  per  cent,  in  disease  and  twelve  per  cent,  in  traumatic 
cases. 

In  the  Annals  of  Surgery,  September,  1895,  Dr.  John  P. 

477 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Erdmann  reports  that  from  January,  1884,  to  January, 
1895  (the  aseptic  period),  there  were  eighteen  hip -joint 
amputations  done  in  Bellevue,  Roosevelt,  St.  Luke's,- Mt. 
Sinai,  Chambers  Street,  German,  and  Presbyterian  hospi- 
tals in  New  York  City,  udth  eight  deaths,  a  mortality  of 
44.4  per  cent.  Of  the  eighteen  patients  seven  were  operated 
on  by  my  method  as  above  given,  and  all  recovered,  leaving 
eight  fatal  cases  in  eleven  amputations  by  other  methods, 
a  death-rate  of  72.7  per  cent.  I  do  not  claim  that  such  a 
death-rate  as  this  would  follow  other  methods  of  opera- 
tion; but  I  do  insist  that  my  method  of  hemostasis  is  so 
simple  and  generally  applicable  that  it  removes  from  the 
procedure  all  possible  danger  of  operative  hemorrhage. 

It  was  a  matter  of  gratification  to  the  author  that  by  the 
leading  surgeons  of  his  time  this  method  of  hemostasis  was 
generally  accepted  and  practised.  Of  it  Professor  W.  W. 
Keen  in  a  report  dated  January,  1892,  says: 

"It  was  reserved  for  an  American  surgeon  to  devise  what 
is  undoubtedly  the  best  method,  and,  in  fact,  what  I  think 
we  can  now  call  the  only  method  of  hemostasis  in  amputa- 
tion at  the  hip-joint."  Dr.  Charles  McBumey,  surgeon- 
in-chief  of  the  Roosevelt  Hospital,  remarks,  "No  other 
appliance  that  has  been  suggested  for  the  purpose  could 
in  any  way  compare  in  utility  with  that  of  Dr.  Wyeth." 
Dr.  J.  S.  Horsely,  professor  of  surgery  in  the  Medical 
College  of  Virginia,  Richmond:  "No  more  blood  was  lost 
than  in  an  amputation  through  the  thigh.  It  remained 
for  Dr.  Wyeth  to  so  perfect  this  method  as  to  make  ampu- 
tation practically  a  bloodless  operation."  Dr.  Wm.  F. 
Fluhrer,  of  New  York,  says,  "As  little  blood  was  lost  as  in 
an  ordinary  amputation  at  the  middle  of  the  thigh." 

Being  called  upon  early  in  1889  to  remove  the  upper 

478 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

extremity  for  a  large  sarcoma,  which  involved  the  head 
of  the  humerus  and  a  portion  of  the  scapula  and  which 
required  removal  of  the  soft  parts  as  well  as  the  acromion 
process  of  the  scapula,  I  devised  and  practised  successfully 
the  following  operation: 

The  arm  was  emptied  of  blood  in  the  same  manner  as 
outlined  for  the  lower  extremity.  With  the  large  skewer 
the  skin,  together  with  the  substance  of  the  pectoralis 
major  muscle  for  about  three  inches,  was  transfixed  about 
the  same  distance  from  the  shoulder-joint.  The  second 
needle  was  passed  through  the  tissues  of  the  dorsum 
scapulae  at  the  same  level  and  for  the  same  distance.  The 
rubber  tube  was  now  wound  five  or  six  times  around  the 
shoulder  above  these  needles,  making  strong  traction.  The 
incision  for  the  flap  was  made  to  conform  to  the  conditions 
which  were  present.  The  ideal  amputation  here  is  a  circular 
incision  through  the  skin  down  to  the  deep  fascia  about 
four  inches  below  the  shoulder-joint.  This  should  be  dis- 
sected upward  for  one  inch  in  the  entire  circumference  of 
the  arm,  at  which  point  the  muscles,  nerves,  vessels,  and 
all  the  soft  tissues  are  divided  down  to  the  bones.  A  longi- 
tudinal incision  is  then  made  from  the  acromion  directly 
downward,  joining  with  the  circular  incision  and  dividing 
everything  to  the  periosteum.  From  the  bone  the  soft 
tissues  are  now  lifted  by  dissection,  the  capsule  divided, 
disarticulation  performed,  and  the  blood-vessels  are  tied. 
The  tourniquet  may  at  this  stage  be  slightly  loosened  in 
order  to  be  sure  that  no  bleeding  points  are  overlooked. 
The  wound  is  then  closed  with  silkworm  gut  sutures,  leaving 
a  good-sized  ten-day  catgut  drain  leading  out  from  the  most 
dependent  angle  into  the  dressing,  which  is  held  in  place  by 
a  figure-of-eight  bandage  around  the  stump,  neck,  and  chest. 


IV 

THE  TREATMENT  OF  VASCULAR  TUMORS  (aNGIOMATA)  BY  THE 
INJECTION  INTO  THEIR  SUBSTANCE  OF  WATER  AT  A  HIGH 
TEMPERATURE 

In  dealing  in  1901  with  a  large  congenital,  vascular 
neoplasm  ("venous  angioma,"  or  "cavernous  naevus")  of 
the  right  lower  jaw,  chin,  and  neck  of  a  woman  twenty 
years  old,  the  removal  of  which  by  dissection  had  been 
twice  attempted  and  abandoned  (once  by  myself)  on  account 
of  bleeding,  I  conceived  the  idea  of  coagulating  the  blood 
and  lymph  in  the  vessels  involved  by  injecting  into  the 
general  substance  of  the  tumor  water  at  a  temperature 
sufficiently  high  to  produce  coagulation  of  these  liquids, 
and  yet  not  hot  enough  to  destroy  the  normal  fascia  and 
integument.  I  reasoned  that  aseptic  coagulation  would 
do  away  with  the  excessive  vascularity  of  the  mass,  and 
that  the  coagulated  material  would  ultimately  disappear  by 
granular  metamorphosis.  The  result  was  the  fulfilment  of 
every  expectation. 

Under  ether  narcosis,  on  July  14,  1901,  for  the  first  time 
the  following  operation  was  successfully  performed  in  the 
amphitheater  of  the  New  York  Polyclinic  Medical  School 
and  Hospital: 

The  patient's  face  and  body  were  thoroughly  protected 
with  a  thick  matting  of  sterile  gauze,  through  which  a  hole 
was  cut  just  large  enough  to  permit  the  siirface  of  the  tumor 
to  be  seen.     An  all-metal-steel  syringe,  especially  devised 

480 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

by  me,  and  manufactured  by  the  Kny-Scheerer  Company, 
was  filled  with  boiling  water.  Protecting  my  fingers  with 
two  pairs  of  gloves,  the  water  was  kept  at  the  boiling- 
temperature  up  to  the  moment  of  injection  by  holding 
underneath  the  barrel  of  the  syringe  a  large  alcohol-lamp 
(when  the  larger  syringes  are  used  the  Bunsen  burner  is 
preferable).  A  gauze  mat  was  then  held  in  front  of  the 
needle-point  to  prevent  the  escaping  steam  from  scalding 
the  exposed  skin,  and  as  it  reached  the  surface  of  the  tumor, 
the  needle  was  projected  through  this  and  carried  deeply 
into  the  substance  of  the  mass.  This  precaution  is  very 
necessary. 

Carrying  the  needle  to  the  deepest  portion  of  the  tumor, 
before  beginning  the  injection,  an  assistant  was  directed  to 
make  digital  compression  over  the  external  and  internal 
jugular  veins  on  that  side  to  prevent  the  possibiHty  of 
embolism.  The  hot  water  was  now  forced  in,  injecting 
about  twenty  minims  at  one  point,  withdrawing  the  syringe 
about  one-half  of  an  inch,  and  repeating  this  performance 
by  reinserting  the  needle  along  parallel  lines  until  the  tumor 
was  solidified.  It  should  afford  to  the  touch  the  elastic 
resistance  of  a  hard-boiled  egg  from  which  the  shell  has 
been  removed. 

In  five  minutes  the  compression  over  the  jugulars  was 
removed.  Although  the  sense  of  heat  was  about  as  much 
as  the  hand  could  comfortably  endure,  the  skin  over  the 
tumor  did  not  slough,  and  the  solidified  mass  underwent 
absorption.  There  was  no  pain  after  the  patient  became 
conscious  and  no  elevation  of  body  temperature.  Two 
subsequent  minor  operations  with  local  cocaine  anesthesia 
were  done  in  this  case  to  coagulate  small  areas  which  had 
escaped  the  first  injection. 

481 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

I  have  now  employed  this  method  in  a  very  considerable 
number  of  cases  of  venous  angioma,  and  have  succeeded 
in  curing  or  arresting  the  growth  of  the  neoplasm  in  every 
case,  and,  with  the  exception  of  an  occasional  slough  on 
account  of  too  great  heat,  without  accident. 

In  cases  of  arterial  angioma  (cirsoid  aneurism)  this 
method  may  be  safely  employed  without  the  possibility  of 
embolism.  I  have  used  it  with  gratifying  results  in  two 
instances,  and  other  surgeons  have  been  equally  successful. 
On  account  of  the  newness  of  the  procedure  I  include  here 
the  report  of  a  single  case: 

Miss  S.  C,  age  twenty-seven,  came  under  observation 
in  January,  1902,  on  account  of  a  large,  pulsating  tumor 
covering  one-half  of  the  left  side  of  the  scalp,  and  measuring 
five  by  six  inches,  with  an  elevation  above  the  level  of  the 
normal  scalp  varying  from  one-half  an  inch  to  an  inch. 
On  the  surface  there  were  several  large  cicatrices  which  had 
resulted  from  attempts  to  strangulate  it  by  ligature.  Lead- 
ing into  this  tumor  were  five  arteries  which  could  be  dis- 
tinctly seen  pulsating  with  an  increasing  twisting  move- 
ment as  they  approached  a  junction  with  the  cork-screw- 
like vessels  which  composed  the  mass.  Two  of  these  came 
from  the  left  temporal,  one  from  the  right  temporal,  and 
one  from  each  occipital  artery.  It  had  grown  rapidly 
within  the  last  year.  The  operation  above  described  was 
repeated  in  this  instance  with  complete  success.  A  unique 
feature  of  interest  was  an  extensive  edema  which  spread 
over  the  entire  head  and  face,  closing  the  eyes  and  extend- 
ing half-way  down  the  neck.  Eleven  years  have  passed, 
and  this  patient  has  remained  entirely  cured. 

In  capillary  angioma,  or  birthmark,  usually  seen  in  infants 
and  young  children,  I  have  used  this  method  in  a  large  num- 

482 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

ber  of  cases,  but  not  with  the  success  which  has  attended  the 
treatment  of  the  venous  or  arterial  neoplasms. 

The  abnormal  epidermal  covering  of  this  type  of  naevus  is 
non-resistant  and  sloughs  as  a  result  of  the  heat  required 
to  coagulate  the  liquids  present.  Great  care  is  necessary 
to  prevent  scalding  the  contiguous  normal  skin.  It  is  my 
rule  to  inject  these  small  areas  carefully  with  only  a  few 
minims,  in  this  way  to  arrest  the  spread  of  the  growth  and 
then  remove  the  resulting  scar  by  excision  and  suture. 
When  this  method  was  made  public  before  the  surgical 
section  of  the  American  Medical  Association  in  1903  it 
was  stated  in  the  discussion  which  ensued  that  the  princi- 
ple of  decreasing  vascularity  by  coagulation  of  the  contents 
of  the  vessels  might  be  applied  in  the  treatment  of  tumors 
of  the  thyroid.  While  I  have  had  no  personal  experience 
in  treating  this  form  of  neoplasm  by  this  method,  a  number 
of  successful  cases  have  been  reported  by  Dr.  Miles  F. 
Porter,  of  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana. 

The  following  case  describes  a  procedure  I  devised  to  pre- 
vent the  possibilities  of  cerebral  embolism  by  temporarily 
reversing  the  direction  of  the  blood-current  in  the  internal 
carotid  artery: 

The  patient,  a  mechanic  of  nineteen  years,  who,  with  the 
exception  of  the  lesion  here  described,  was  in  perfect  physi- 
cal condition,  came  under  observation  in  the  Polyclinic 
Hospital  in  1907.  Situated  on  the  side  of  the  neck  in  the 
line  of  the  internal  and  external  jugular  veins,  below  the 
angle  of  the  left  jaw,  was  a  vascular  neoplasm  which  meas- 
ured about  three  inches  in  two  directions,  and  projected 
well  beyond  the  level  of  the  inferior  maxilla,  the  tumor 
having  a  thickness  of  between  two  and  three  inches.  It  was 
of  bluish  color  and  without  pulsation.     By  steady  compres- 

483 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

sion  it  could  be  practically  emptied  of  blood  and  reduced 
almost  to  the  natural  level  of  the  neck.  When  the  pressure 
was  released  it  filled  rapidly  and  resumed  its  former  size. 

On  account  of  the  intimate  relation  of  this  tumor  to  the 
common  internal  and  external  carotid  arteries,  the  exter- 
nal and  internal  jugular  veins,  and  the  pneumogastric,  sym- 
pathetic, facial,  and  spinal  accessory  nerves,  I  hesitated  to 
employ  the  hot-water  method  for  fear  of  causing  an  em- 
bolism in  the  jugular  vein  or  the  internal  carotid  artery 
or  of  injuring  one  or  more  of  the  nerves.  An  attempt  to 
extirpate  the  mass  was  accompanied  by  such  profuse 
hemorrhage  that  it  was  abandoned,  and  later  I  successfully 
carried  out  the  following  procedure: 

To  prevent  the  possibility  of  pulmonic  embolism  the  in- 
ternal jugular  was  exposed  near  the  clavicle  and  temporarily 
occluded  by  passing  around  it  a  large-sized  catgut  ligature, 
which  was  twisted  and  held  firmly  by  an  artery  clamp.  A 
similar  ligature  was  then  thrown  around  the  common  carotid 
artery  at  the  same  level,  and  this  vessel  was  in  like  manner 
temporarily  occluded.  The  object  of  this  last  ligature  was 
to  reverse  the  current  of  blood  in  the  internal  carotid  of  this 
side,  for  as  soon  as  the  normal  flow  from  the  heart  to 
the  brain  was  stopped  by  this  ligature  the  current  was 
of  necessity  supplied  from  the  opposite  internal  carotid 
through  the  direct  and  free  arterial  anastomosis  (the  circle 
of  Willis)  between  these  two  vessels.  Under  such  condi- 
tions any  embolism  caused  by  the  water  would  be  swept 
downward  and  into  the  distribution  of  the  external  carotid, 
without  danger  to  the  integrity  of  the  brain. 

The  boiling  water  was  then  injected,  and  the  mass  became 
solid.  I  waited  fifteen  minutes  to  satisfy  myself  of  the 
absence  of  coagulum  in  the  internal  jugular,  which  could 

484 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

readily  have  been  recognized  by  the  sense  of  touch.  I  then 
removed  this  Hgature  and  that  around  the  common  carotid. 
There  was  no  paralysis  and  no  change  in  the  pupils  during 
or  after  the  operation.  The  patient  made  an  uninterrupted 
recovery,  has  been  kept  under  observation,  and  now,  after 
more  than  five  years,  is  entirely  well.  There  is  no  suggestion 
of  a  tumor  or  swelling  in  the  neck,  the  two  sides  being  sym- 
metrical and  normal. 


V 

DEMONSTRATION  BY  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDIES  ON  ANIMALS 
AND  BY  OPERATIONS  ON  HUMAN  BEINGS  OF  THE  PROCESS 
OF   PERMANENT  ARTERIAL   OCCLUSION  AFTER    DELIGATION 

I  PRESENTED  to  the  New  York  Pathological  Society,  on 
April  26,  1882,  a  series  of  specimens  which  showed  the  re- 
sults obtained  by  the  use  of  broad  animal  ligatures  applied  to 
arteries  in  continuity.  One  of  these  specimens  was  the  com- 
mon carotid  artery  of  a  woman,  which  I  tied  in  September, 
1 88 1,  using  the  sciatic  nerve  of  a  calf  which  had  been  made 
asceptic  by  treatment  in  carbolic-acid  solution.  This  tape- 
like ligature  was  not  quite  one-fourth  of  an  inch  in  width. 
The  artery  was  tied  just  tightly  enough  to  arrest  entirely 
the  circulation  without  doing  violence  to  the  inner  elastic 
layer.  The  patient  died  seven  months  after  the  operation 
from  an  intercurrent  disease.  The  artery  was  completely 
occluded  in  the  area  compressed  by  the  ligature,  and  its 
continuity  was  unbroken.  There  was  a  slight  depression, 
one-fourth  of  an  inch  in  width,  which  marked  the  exact 
location  of  the  ligature,  every  other  trace  of  which  had 
disappeared. 

I  presented  at  the  same  meeting  the  carotid  and  sub- 
clavian arteries  of  another  patient,  which  I  had  tied  with 
a  broad  ligature  made  of  ox  aorta  after  the  method  of  Mr. 
Richard  Bar  well,  of  London.  This  operation  had  been  done 
for  the  cure  of  aneurism  of  the  ascending  segment  of  the 
aorta,  which  operation  had  proved  successful.    The  patient 

486 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

died  one  year  later  from  entero-colitis.  The  occlusion  of 
the  arteries  was  complete,  and  the  conditions  the  same  as 
in  the  case  first  reported. 

I  also  presented  the  carotid  artery  of  a  large  dog  tied 
experimentally  with  the  nerve  ligature,  similar  to  that  used 
in  the  case  of  the  woman  above  reported.  The  animal  was 
killed  five  weeks  later,  and,  as  shown,  the  artery  was  com- 
pletely occluded  and  the  continuity  of  the  inner  layer  seem- 
ingly unbroken. 

In  another  specimen  the  carotid  artery  of  a  horse  was 
shown.  In  the  appHcation  of  this  ligature,  the  lumen  of 
the  vessel  was  intentionally  not  entirely  occluded,  permitting 
a  portion  of  the  blood  current  to  pass  through.  Mounted 
sections  of  these  arteries  showed  active  proliferation  in  all 
the  normal  cells  of  the  arterial  wall,  most  marked  in  the 
connective  tissue  group,  they  demonstrated  that  arte- 
rial OCCLUSION  WAS  THE  DIRECT  RESULT  OF  CELL  PROLIFERA- 
TION AND  THE  RESULTING  FIBRILLATION  AND  CONTRACTION 
OF  THE  NEW  CELLS  OF  THE  INFLAMMATORY  PROCESS  CAUSED 
BY  THE  TRAUMATISM  OR  IRRITATION  OF  THE  CONSTRICTING 
BAND  OR  LIGATURE.^ 

Scarpa  had  advanced  the  idea  many  years  before  that  it 
was  not  necessary  to  constrict  an  artery  with  a  ligature 
forcibly  enough  to  break  even  the  inner  elastic  layer. 
Jameson,  of  Baltimore,  with  this  same  idea  in  mind,  had 
later  recommended  broad  animal  ligatures  made  of  deer- 
tendon,  but  the  fact  that  the  clot  was  an  accident  of  rather  than 
a  factor  in  arterial  occlusion  after  the  ligature,  and  that  closure 
was  due  to  cell  proliferation,  was  now  for  the  first  time  demon- 
strated. 

1  Published  in  the  transactions  of  the  New  York  Pathological  Society, 
1882;  Medical  Record,  July  22,  1882;  and  in  Wyeth's  Text-hook  on  Surgery, 
1887,  p.  171. 

487 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

When  I  found  in  the  work  of  Ballance  and  Edmonds  on 
Ligation  in  Continuity  no  mention  of  these  researches,  I 
addressed  to  them  a  letter  calling  their  attention  to  it, 
and  received  the  following  reply: 

London,  England,  September  24,  i8g4. 

Dear  Sir, — We  are  much  obliged  for  your  kind  letter  with  respect  to 
our  book.     Its  main  conclusion  is  identical  with  that  at  which  you  had 
arrived  long  before.    We  congratulate  you  on  the  result  of  your  ligations. 
Yours  very  truly, 

Charles  A.  Ballance, 
Walter  Edmonds. 


VI 

CONTRIBUTION   TO   THE   STUCY   OF   THE   EFFECT   OF   STREPTO- 
COCCUS   AND   PYOGENIC   INFECTION   UPON    SARCOMA 

Joseph  Phillips,  twenty-eight  years  old,  of  Gainesville, 
Texas,  came  iinder  my  observation  in  1884,  with  the  follow- 
ing history: 

A  year  previous  he  had  received  a  blow  on  the  abdomen 
over  the  right  iliac  region,  which  was  followed  by  induration 
and  the  development  of  a  neoplasm.  At  the  time  of  the 
examination  the  tumor  was  four  by  six  inches  in  surface 
measurement  and  about  three  and  one  -  half  inches  in 
thickness.  On  account  of  the  involvement  of  the  abdominal 
wall  it  was  found  impossible  to  remove  it.  A  section  ex- 
tending almost  entirely  through  the  mass  was  excised, 
and  examined  by  Dr.  William  H.  Welch  and  two  other 
competent  pathologists.  The  diagnosis  of  each  was  spindle- 
cell  sarcoma.  Having  noticed  in  a  current  medical  periodical 
the  report  of  a  case  of  sarcoma  said  to  have  been  cured  by 
the  direct  injection  into  its  substance  of  Fowler's  solution 
of  arsenic,  I  advised  this  treatment,  and  began  with  injec- 
tions in  two  or  more  portions  of  the  mass  of  from  one  to 
three  minims  of  the  solution,  gradually  increasing  the 
quantity  to  as  much  as  ten  minims.  These  were  repeated 
daily  for  four  or  five  days,  then  every  other  day  for  about 
ten  days.  They  became  so  painful  that  at  the  patient's 
request  the  treatment  was  discontinued. 
32  489 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  gradually  increasing  pain  was  occasioned  no  doubt 
by  a  pyogenic  infection  which  had  supervened  in  and  near 
several  of  the  punctures.  This  spread  over  the  entire 
tumor,  which  became  red  and  swollen,  and  pitted  on  press- 
ure. The  skin  did  not  have  the  glazed  or  "stove-polish" 
appearance  of  erysipelas,  but  rather  the  look  of  a  severe 
dermatitis.  The  infection  proved  to  be  in  part  pyogenic, 
and  several  incisions  were  necessary  to  permit  the  free 
discharge  of  pus.  The  patient  suffered  very  considerably 
from  the  high  temperatures  due  to  aseptic  absorption,  but 
after  a  period  of  about  two  weeks  the  swelling  began  to 
diminish  in  size,  and  with  this  there  was  a  general  improve- 
ment in  his  condition.  Four  months  later  his  physician, 
Dr.  A.  H.  Conson,  of  Gainesville,  informed  me  that  the 
tumor  had  entirely  disappeared.  The  patient  regained  his 
former  condition  of  health  and  survived,  without  recurrence, 
eighteen  years,  and  until  a  few  days  before  his  death  from 
acute  pneumonia  was  hale  and  hearty,  his  weight  at  that 
time  being  one  hundred  and  seventy  pounds. 

So  far  as  I  am  able  to  learn  this  was  the  first  known  case 
of  a  cure  of  sarcoma  by  an  infective  process  other  than 
erysipelas,  and  this  experience  has  since  been  confirmed  in 
a  number  of  instances,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and 
instructive  of  which  is  the  following: 

A  man  from  Augusta,  Georgia,  aged  thirty-five,  con- 
sulted me  in  1893  in  regard  to  a  large  intra-abdominal 
tumor  occupying  the  right  hypochondriac  region.  He  was 
anemic,  greatly  emaciated,  and  had  the  marked  cachexia 
of  a  malignant  growth.  On  account  of  ascites  he  had  been 
tapped  on  three  occasions,  and  I  removed  at  one  operation 
five  gallons  of  fluid  from  the  peritoneal  cavity.  With  the 
collapse  of  the  abdominal  wall  there  was  felt  a  hard,  round, 

490 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

slightly  movable  tumor,  four  or  five  inches  in  diameter, 
which  was  exposed  by  a  longitudinal  incision  of  about  six 
inches.  To  the  touch  the  tumor  was  firm,  slightly  elastic, 
and  occupied  the  space  between  the  stomach  and  the  liver, 
having  developed  from  the  gastro-hepatic  omentum.  It 
was  of  a  reddish-brown  color,  and  covered  in  front  with  a 
network  of  large  vessels. 

On  account  of  its  vascularity  and  the  feeble  condition  of 
the  patient  I  did  not  venture  to  remove  a  section  for 
microscopic  examination,  but  from  its  location  and  micro- 
scopic appearance  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  sarcoma. 
The  edges  of  the  abdominal  incision  were  retracted  so  as 
to  permit  about  one-third  of  the  anterior  surface  of  the 
mass  to  be  delivered  into  the  wound,  while  sterile  gauze  was 
inserted  around  the  edges  to  secure  adhesions  and  to  pre- 
vent any  general  peritoneal  infection  from  the  exposed  mass, 
which  was  now  covered  with  loose  gauze.  Three  days  later 
this  packing  was  removed,  and  the  wound  and  the  exposed 
surface  of  the  tumor  were  permitted  to  become  infected. 
Suppuration  was  soon  established,  the  dressings  were 
changed  daily,  and  within  two  weeks'  time  there  was  a 
noticeable  diminution  in  the  size  of  the  mass  and  an  im- 
provement in  the  patient's  general  condition.  This  wound 
was  kept  open  and  allowed  to  suppurate  for  about  two 
months,  at  the  end  of  which  time,  as  well  as  I  could  estimate, 
the  neoplasm  had  diminished  about  one-half  its  original 
size. 

After  the  wound  healed  the  shrinkage  continued,  and 
six  months  after  the  operation  it  had  disappeared.  The 
patient's  general  health  became  better  from  day  to  day. 
Five  years  later  I  operated  on  him  for  hemorrhoids.  A  few 
years  after  his  recovery  he  married,  and  is  the  father  of  a 

491 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

number  of  children,  and  to-day,  after  a  lapse  of  more  than 
twenty  years,  is  in  the  enjoyment  of  excellent  health.  The 
ascites  was  evidently  caused  by  direct  pressure  of  the  heavy 
tumor  upon  the  portal  vein.  Its  delivery  into  the  wound 
and  subsequent  adhesions  to  the  anterior  abdominal  wound 
lifted  it  and  held  it,  leaving  the  vein  free. 

There  was  admitted  to  Mt.  Sinai  Hospital  in  1882,  in 
the  service  of  my  colleague,  Dr.  A.  G.  Gerster,  a  young 
woman  suffering  with  sarcoma  of  the  leg,  for  which  an 
amputation  was  made  just  below  the  knee.  A  recurrence 
took  place,  followed  by  a  hip-joint  disarticulation.  The 
disease  again  appeared  in  the  stump,  developing  rapidly 
into  an  extensive,  cauliflower-like  mass  which  became  acci- 
dentally infected  with  erysipelas.  This  infection  ran  the 
usual  course  of  erysipelas,  during  the  progress  of  which  the 
tumor  began  to  diminish  in  size  and  eventually  entirely  dis- 
appeared. In  1907,  more  than  twenty-five  years  after  this 
experience,  when  this  patient  was  last  heard  from,  she  was 
entirely  well,  and  still  actively  engaged  in  her  work  as  a 
school-teacher. 

The  experiments  of  Fehleisen  and  others  by  direct  in- 
fection with  the  streptococcus  erysipelatis  have  confirmed 
the  result  in  the  case  above  narrated;  but  as  far  as  I  am 
able  to  inform  myself  the  two  cases  here  reported  are  the 
first  on  record  in  which  a  cure  of  sarcoma  was  effected  by 
pyogenic  infection,  the  one  accidental,  the  other  intentional. 

In  a  paper  on  the  ' '  Frequency  of  Recurrence  of  Sarcoma, 
with  Special  Reference  to  Amputation  at  the  Hip- joint  on 
Account  of  this  Neoplasm,"  read  before  the  Philadelphia 
Academy  of  Surgery  in  April,  1901,  I  submitted  an  analysis 
of  the  results  in  one  hundred  and  ninety-one  amputations 
at  this  joint,  by  my  "bloodless  method,"  on   account  of 

492 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

sarcoma  chiefly  affecting  the  femur,  but  in  a  few  instances  in- 
volving the  other  connective  tissues  of  the  thigh  and  the  hip. 
I  was  profoundly  impressed  with  the  frequency  of  recurrence 
in  remote  organs.  In  the  fifty-three  recurring  cases  in  which 
the  histories  were  accepted  as  reliable  the  seat  of  metastasis 
was  in  the  lung  alone  in  twenty-three,  lung  and  bronchi 
one,  lung  and  pleura  one,  lung  and  abdomen  one,  pleura 
two,  abdominal  viscera  three,  liver  one,  abdomen  and 
chest  one,  in  the  stump  ten,  stump  and  mesenteric  glands 
one,  stump  and  general  metastasis  one,  stump  and  iliac- 
fossa  one,  lymphatic  glands  of  groin  one,  sacro-iliac  syn- 
chondrosis one,  location  not  given  four,  and  in  one  instance 
apoplexy  was  given  as  the  cause  of  death. 

My  conclusions  were:  first,  that  the  cells  or  germs,  prior 
to  amputation,  had  been  carried  from  the  original  focus 
of  the  disease,  lodged  in  these  various  remote  organs,  and 
there  awaited  conditions  favorable  to  their  further  pro- 
liferation; second,  that  after  amputation  (or  extirpation  of 
sarcoma)  the  patient  should  be  subjected  to  the  immunizing 
influence  of  a  streptococcus  and  pyogenic  infection.  This 
I  practise  in  all  instances,  and  in  a  fair  proportion  with 
gratifying  results.  I  rely  so  confidently  upon  the  bene- 
ficial effects  of  this  treatment  that  instead  of  amputating 
high  up  at  the  hip-joint,  as  I  did  formerly,  I  now  divide  the 
bone  in  the  non-involved  portion  within  six  inches  of  the 
location  of  the  tumor. 

The  operation  is  done  with  the  usual  aseptic  precautions, 
and  the  flaps  sutured,  leaving  about  one  inch  of  an  angle 
open,  through  which  a  twist  of  gauze  half  an  inch  thick  is 
inserted,  one  end  deep  in  the  wound,  the  other  protruding. 
At  the  end  of  the  second  week  the  gauze  twist  is  replaced  by 
another,  which  has  been  soaked  in  fresh  culture  of  pyogenic 

493 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

streptococcus.  The  patient's  temperature  is  kept  at  from 
1 00°  to  103°  Fahrenheit  for  three  weeks  by  reinfection  when 
necessary.  Then  a  rest  for  ten  days,  and  a  final  reinfection 
practised  for  two  more  weeks,  when  the  sinus  is  allowed 
to  close. 

After  removal  of  a  sarcoma  of  the  soft  tissues  the  same 
method  is  followed. 

While  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  a  large  pro- 
portion of  cases  of  sarcoma  will  end  fatally,  without  regard 
to  the  treatment  instituted,  every  case,  after  removal  of 
the  original  focus  when  possible  (or  without  this  in  nOn- 
operative  cases),  should  be  treated  with  the  alternative  of 
mixed  infection  with  the  pyogenic  streptococcus  cultures. 
That  in  a  certain  proportion  of  cases  this  injection  destroys 
the  cells  or  germs  already  deposited  remote  from  the  parent 
neoplasm  and  effects  a  permanent  cure  I  have  no  doubt. 
A  very  considerable  list  of  such  cures  in  my  own  experience 
has  emphasized  this  conviction. 


VII 

THE  SURGICAL  ANATOMY  AND  SURGERY  OF  THE  TIBIO-TARSAL 
ARTICULATION,  WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  A  MODIFI- 
CATION OF  syme's  amputation  ^ 

Professor  Stephen  Smith  in  his  clinical  lectures  at  Belle- 
vue  and  in  his  Operative  Surgery  in  1874  stated  that  on  ac- 
count of  sloughing  of  the  inner-posterior  flap  after  Syme's 
method  of  disarticulation  at  the  ankle-joint  as  then  performed, 
the  necessity  for  reamputation  was  three  per  cent,  greater 
than  after  any  other  amputation.  In  the  effort  to  discover 
the  cause  of  this  sloughing  I  made  eighty-seven  dissections 
of  the  region  involved,  with  special  regard  to  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  blood-supply  to  the  heel.  It  was  demonstrated 
that  the  line  of  incision  well  back  over  the  point  of  the  heel 
as  commonly  advised  and  practised  in  this  amputation 
divided  the  vessels  so  far  back  that  the  ligature  occluded 
the  recurrent  branches  which  were  essential  to  the  nourish- 
ment of  the  flap.  The  modification  advised  was  to  carry 
the  incision  across  the  sole  well  forward,  making  a  longer 
posterior  and  a  shorter  anterior  flap. 

The  modified  procedure  is  as  follows : 

With  the  foot  held  at  an  angle  of  ninety  degrees  to  the 

1  This  essay  was  awarded  the  annual  prize  of  one  hundred  dollars,  offered 
by  Professor  James  R.  Wood,  to  the  Alumni  Association  of  the  Bellevue  Hos- 
pital Medical  College  for  "The  best  essay  on  any  subject  connected  with 
surgical  pathology  or  operative  surgery,"  February,  1876.  The  committee 
were  Professors  W.  H.  Van  Buren,  Austin  Flint,  Sr.,  and  Alpheus  B.  Crosby. 

495 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

axis  of  the  leg,  place  the  thumb  at  the  tip  of  one  malleolus, 
and  the  index  at  the  other,  and  from  the  center  of  the 
malleolus  internus  carry  an  incision  directly  across  the  sole 
of  the  foot  to  a  point  one-fourth  of  an  inch  anterior  to  the 
tip  of  the  malleolus  extemus.  This  incision  should  divide 
all  the  tissues  to  the  bones,  and  its  perpendicular  portion 
should  descend  in  a  direction  slightly  anterior  to  the  axis 
of  the  tibia.  The  ends  of  this  cut  are  united  by  a  second, 
which  arches  sharply  upward  about  on  the  line  of  section  of 
the  bones,  and  should  also  divide  tendons  and  all  intervening 
structures,  opening  into  the  joint.  The  foot  should  now 
be  firmly  grasped  and  extended,  so  as  to  make  tense  the 
anterior  ligament  of  the  ankle,  which  is  easily  divided. 
Carrying  the  knife  to  either  side  of  the  articular  surfaces 
of  the  astragalus,  the  lateral  ligaments  are  cut,  and  the 
joint  thus  widely  exposed.  An  assistant  now  holds  and 
depresses  the  foot,  while  the  operator  carefully  dissects 
the  tissues  closely  from  the  astragalus  and  calcaneum. 
Care  should  be  taken  not  to  bruise  the  flap  by  too  great 
traction.  In  dissecting  along  the  inner  surface  of  the  ankle 
the  knife  should  be  kept  close  to  the  bones,  so  that  when 
the  lesser  process  of  the  calcaneum  is  reached  it  will  slide 
behind  and  under  this  process,  passing  between  it  and  the 
flexor  tendon  and  the  vessels.  If  this  precaution  is  not 
taken  the  arteries  may  be  wounded  and  the  nutrition  of  the 
flap  seriously  impaired. 

As  the  dissection  proceeds  the  foot  is  further  depressed, 
and  the  tendo  Achillis  separated  from  its  insertion  into  the 
tuberosity  of  the  calcaneum,  in  doing  which  care  must 
be  taken  not  to  buttonhole  the  flap.  The  posterior  portion 
of  the  OS  calcis  may  now  be  brought  through  the  joint  and 
the  dissection  continued  in  this  direction  or  finished  by 

496 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

working  back  along  the  under  surface  of  this  bone.  After 
the  foot  is  removed  the  flaps  are  lifted  from  the  tibia  and 
fibula  until  a  section  of  these  bones  can  be  made  just  on 
the  level  of  the  anterior  margin  of  the  tibia.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  remove  the  articular  surface.  The  flaps  should 
now  be  trimmed  and  fitted,  and  the  vessels  tied.  As  the 
sutures  are  applied  it  will  be  noticed  that  there  is  a  redun- 
dancy of  tissue  in  the  long  flap,  leaving  a  cup-shaped  cavity; 
but  this  can  be  thoroughly  drained  from  the  angles  of  the 
wound,  and  disappears  when  the  stump  is  healed. 


VIII 

TRANSPLANTING  SKIN  FROM  THE  ABDOMEN  OR  OTHER  PARTS 
OF  THE  BODY  TO  THE  HAND  OR  FOREARM— TRANSFERRING 
THE  GRAFT  BY  THIS  MEANS  TO  THE  FACE,  NECK,  OR  ELSE- 
WHERE 

In  the  case  of  a  boy  who  had  siiffered  a  very  severe  burn 
on  the  wrist  I  devised  an  operation  for  the  transplantation 
of  skin  {en  masse),  from  the  abdomen  or  other  available 
parts  of  the  body,  which  has  given  great  satisfaction.  As 
far  as  I  have  been  able  to  inform  myself  it  was  a  novel  pro- 
cedure. For  a  width  of  from  two  to  three  inches,  and  for 
the  entire  circumference  of  the  wrist,  the  integument  had 
been  completely  destroyed  by  the  ignition  of  a  celluloid  cuff. 
The  tendons  were  in  general  adherent  to  the  dense  cicatricial 
belt.  This  was  entirely  dissected  away,  freeing  the  flexor 
and  extensor  tendons  and  the  nerves. 

To  fill  in  this  extensive  deficiency  a  cuff  of^skin  was  taken 
from  the  abdomen.  The  forearm,  flexed  at  ninety  degrees, 
was  laid  across  the  belly  in  a  position  to  insure  the  minimum 
of  discomfort;  and  just  beneath  the  location  of  the  dis- 
section at  the  wrist  parallel  perpendicular  incisions  as  wide 
apart  as  the  area  to  be  covered  by  the  graft  were  made 
through  the  skin  and  subcutaneous  fat.  Leaving  both  ends 
attached,  this  long  band,  or  ribbon,  of  skin  was  dissected 
up,  removing  all  the  subcutaneous  fat  for  the  central  two 
inches.  Careful  measurements  were  made  to  insure  the 
proper  width  and  length  of  the  cuff. 

498 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

The  wound  from  which  the  flap  was  raised  was  closed  at 
once  by  silk- worm  gut  sutures.  When  a  wide  area  is  un- 
covered it  may  be  necessary  to  dissect  subcutaneously  on 
either  side  in  order  to  approximate  the  edges  without  too 
great  tension.  The  hand,  resting  upon  a  pad  of  dry  sterile 
gauze,  was  then  carried  beneath  the  flap,  the  raw  edges  of 
which  were  carefully  stitched  to  the  edges  of  the  skin  upon 
the  dorsum  radii.  A  plaster-of-Paris  dressing  was  applied 
to  within  two  inches  of  the  flap  to  immobolize  the  arm  and 
forearm,  and  an  aseptic  dressing  and  adhesive  plasters  were 
utilized  to  hold  the  hand  and  wrist  in  proper  position.  The 
operator  should  be  sure  that  there  is  no  tension  on  the  flap 
at  any  point. 

It  is  a  wise  precaution  to  have  the  hand  held  firmly  by 
an  assistant  until  the  patient  is  entirely  conscious,  and  to 
apply  a  light  dressing,  which  permits  of  frequent  inspections. 
On  the  tenth  day  this  patient  was  again  anesthetized,  the 
flap  divided  near  each  attachment,  and  the  stitches  were 
inserted  to  complete  the  cuff.  It  was  necessary  to  scrape 
off  the  excessive  granulations  on  the  wrist  dissection  and 
some  of  the  subcutaneous  fat  on  the  flap,  since  the  borrowed 
skin  is  apt  to  be  too  thick.  The  stubs  were  turned  back 
and  sutured  in  the  angles  of  the  wound  on  the  abdomen 
from  which  they  had  been  lifted.  It  requires  about  ten 
days  to  secure  a  safe  union  with  the  formation  of  new  vessels 
between  the  flap  and  the  tissues  of  the  wrist  sufficient  to 
insure  vitality. 

In  one  of  the  most  difficult  and  interesting  plastic  opera- 
tions I  have  ever  performed  this  method  of  procedure  met 
every  requirement.  All  the  integument  of  the  back  of  the 
hand  and  each  finger,  including  the  five  nails,  had  been 
scraped  or  torn  off  in  the  mangle  of  a  laimdry,  leaving 

499 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

nothing  but  the  bones  and  some  frazzles  of  tendons.  The 
skin  on  the  palmar  aspect  of  the  hand  and  fingers  was  nor- 
mal, but  the  four  fingers  were  welded  into  one  mass  of  ad- 
hesions with  no  interdigital  spaces.  All  cicatricial  tissue 
was  removed  by  a  tedious  dissection,  the  fingers  split  apart, 
and  the  two  central  extensor  tendons  not  destroyed  were 
split,  and  the  borrowed  halves  stitched  to  the  terminal 
phalanx  of  the  index  and  little  finger,  which  had  been  en- 
tirely denuded.  A  great  square  sheet  of  skin  large  enough 
to  roof  over  the  entire  dorsum  of  the  hand  and  fingers  was 
now  lifted  from  the  belly  after  the  manner  just  described. 
This  was  so  large  that  the  underlying  edges  could  be  only 
partially  approximated.  The  fingers  were  now  stretched  as 
wide  apart  as  possible,  and  the  blanket  flap  was  closely 
sutured  along  the  edge  of  the  skin  incision  across  the  back 
of  the  hand  or  wrist.  Stitches  were  inserted  near  the  tips 
and  on  the  two  sides  of  each  finger,  to  anchor  them  and  the 
flap  in  place. 

On  the  tenth  day  the  flap  was  cut  loose,  and  the  freshly 
divided  edges  were  carefully  stitched  to  the  freshened  edges 
of  the  incision  along  the  outer,  or  radial,  side  of  the  thumb 
and  the  ulnar  margin  of  the  little  finger.  As  much  of  the 
wound  on  the  abdomen  as  possible  was  now  closed  by  turn- 
ing back  the  stubs  of  the  flap.  Ten  days  later  the  flap  half- 
way between  the  thumb  and  the  index  finger  and  the  little 
and  ring  fingers  was  split,  and  the  edges  stitched  into  proper 
place,  and  after  the  lapse  of  another  ten  days  the  two  re- 
maining fingers  were  treated  in  the  same  way.  The  result 
was  remarkably  satisfactory.  The  entire  transplanted  flap 
survived,  each  finger  was  perfectly  covered,  and  a  useful 
hand  was  secured. 

By  this  method  a  piece  of  skin  oj  suitable  dimensions  may 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

be  temporarily  grafted  upon  the  hack  of  the  hand  or  wrist  until 
its  vitality  in  the  new  position  is  assured,  then  freed  from  the 
abdomen,  thigh,  or  back,  and  carried  to  the  face,  neck,  or 
wherever  necessity  may  require.  After  being  held  in  this 
position  until  the  graft  has  taken,  the  remnant  may  be  re- 
stored to  its  original  location. 


IX 

CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    THE     SURGERY    OF    THE     MOUTH,     NASO- 
PHARYNX,  AND    ANTRUM    MAXILLARIS 

In  the  operation  for  the  correction  of  complete  harelip 
with  cleft  of  the  alveolus  and  hard  palate,  the  flattening  of 
the  alaenasi  cannot  be  properly  corrected  without  the  for- 
mation of  a  normal  maxillary  or  alveolar  arch  upon  which 
the  wings  of  the  nostrils  must  be  supported.  In  the  ma- 
jority of  cases  this  wide  gap  in  the  alveolus  in  front  can  be 
filled  by  forcible  fracture  of  the  projecting  intermaxillary 
bone,  which  is  then  carried  into  line  with  the  normal  alve- 
olar arch  and  there  sutured  until  osseous  union  is  secured. 

In  certain,  fortunately  rare  and  neglected,  cases  in  which 
the  intermaxillary  bone  is  undeveloped  the  following  pro- 
cedure, which  I  have  practised  satisfactorily  in  two  in- 
stances, may  be  carried  out :  The  inner  surface  of  the  inter- 
maxillary bone  and  the  opposing  surface  of  the  receding 
alveolus  of  the  other  side  are  freshened  by  slicing  off  the 
mucous  covering.  Between  two  of  the  teeth  on  the  short 
side  a  chisel  is  introduced  and  the  bone  freely  divided  up- 
ward. A  wire  or  heavy  silk  cord  is  inserted  in  this  fissure, 
and  by  strong  traction  the  anterior  portion  of  the  superior 
maxilla  is  fractured  and  carried  forward,  where  it  is  wired 
in  contact  with  the  opposite  freshened  surface. 

Removal  of  the  Lower  Jaw  from  Within  the  Mouth. — In 
the  case  of  S.  J.,  thirty-eight  years  of  age,  at  the  Mt.  Sinai 

502 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Hospital,  on  January  6,  1890,  I  removed  one-half  of  the 
lower  jaw,  disarticulating  at  the  temporo-maxillary  joint 
by  the  following  method: 

The  orbicularis  oris  was  widely  dilated  by  four  strong 
silk  threads  inserted  equidistant  and  used  as  retractors. 
The  bone  was  divided  with  the  Gigli  saw  at  the  symphisis 
menti.  As  the  disease  was  a  simple  necrosis,  the  periosteum 
was  carefully  raised,  the  insertion  of  the  temporal  muscle 
divided  with  the  scissors,  and  the  bone  disarticulated  by 
twisting,  which  ruptured  the  capsular  ligament  and  pre- 
vented hemorrhage  from  the  inferior  dental  artery.  The 
wound  was  packed  at  once  with  sterile  gauze,  which  was 
removed  two  days  after  the  operation  and  not  renewed. 
As  soon  as  the  operation  was  completed  the  teeth  of  the 
remaining  half  of  the  lower  jaw  were  wired  to  those  of  the 
upper  maxilla,  preventing  inward  displacement,  until  the 
patient  three  weeks  later  was  ready  to  be  fitted  with  an 
artificial  apparatus.  This  apparatus,  made  by  a  dentist, 
enabled  the  patient  to  keep  the  remaining  teeth  in  line 
and  to  use  them  satisfactorily  for  purposes  of  mastication. 
A  very  satisfactory  new  bone  filled  the  periosteal  shell  and 
prevented  serious  permanent  deformity. 

This  operation  was  original,  but,  as  I  discovered  later, 
not  novel.  In  looking  over  the  papers  of  the  late  Dr.  J. 
Marion  Sims  in  the  preparation  of  an  address  upon  his 
life-work,  I  found  that  before  chloroform  or  ether  had  been 
discovered  he  had  performed  this  same  operation,  his  case 
having  been  published  in  the  American  Journal  of  the  Medi- 
cal Sciences  for  October,  1847.  He  had  displayed  the  won- 
derful genius  which  characterized  this  great  man  by  pre- 
liminary division  of  the  inferior  dental  nerve,  as  it  enterecj 
the  canal  in  the  lower  jaw,  "in  order  to  render  the  .operation 

503 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

painless.  There  are  several  considerations  to  recommend 
this  operation  in  preference  to  the  usual  one  with  its  ex- 
tensive incisions,  (i)  There  is  no  external  mutilation. 
(2)  As  the  third  branch  of  the  fifth  pair  of  nerves  was  di- 
vided at  the  outset  of  the  operation,  its  subsequent  stages 
were  comparatively  free  from  pain.  (3)  As  no  important 
blood-vessels  are  cut,  no  ligatures  are  required.  (4)  There 
is  no  trouble  with  the  after-treatment.  (5)  It  is  just  as 
easy  of  performance  as  the  old  operation." 

A  New  Procedure  for  the  Removal  of  Otheruuise  Inopera- 
ble Tumors  from  the  Posterior  Pharynx.  —  The  following 
operation  was  performed  on  December  12,  1894,  in  the 
case  of  a  man  twenty  years  of  age  who  was  in  extremis 
from  a  large  neoplasm  of  the  naso-pharynx  and  antrum 
maxillare,  which  caused  frequent  hemorrhages  which  had 
left  him  practically  exsanguinated.  The  operation  was 
witnessed  by  a  number  of  distinguished  surgeons  and 
laryngologists,  among  them  the  late  Drs.  Henry  D.  Noyes, 
R.  P.  Lincoln,  and  Drs.  J.  B.  Emerson,  Robert  C.  Myles, 
and  R.  H.  M.  Dawbam. 

As  a  precautionary  measure  a  vein  was  opened  in  the 
arm  in  order  to  be  ready  for  saline  injection,  which  was  later 
done  by  Dr.  Dawbam.  An  incision  was  made,  beginning 
along  the  temporal  ridge,  two  inches  back  of  the  outer 
angle  of  the  orbit,  following  the  temporal  ridge  to  the  edge 
of  the  orbital  cavity,  along  the  frontal  process  of  the  malar 
bone,  curving  parallel  with  and  one -eighth  of  an  inch 
from  the  orbital  margin,  until  the  point  of  the  knife  reached 
the  infra-orbital  foramen;  then  downward  to  the  level  of 
the  ala  nasi  and  outward  through  the  cheek  until  the  point 
of  the  knife  neared  the  opening  of  Steno's  duct. 

Hemorrhage  was  carefully  stopped  throughout  the  entire 

504 


WITH   SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

incision  by  pressure  and  by  ligating  with  catgut  the  larger 
vessels  which  were  divided.  The  soft  parts  were  in  no  way 
dissected  up  from  the  bone,  except  when  it  became  necessary 
to  enter  the  orbital  cavity  in  its  outer  half,  where  the  tissues 
were  carefully  dissected  away  from  the  bone  and  the  eye 
displaced  toward  the  median  line,  until  the  anterior  com- 
missure of  the  spheno-maxillary  fissure  came  into  view. 
I  then  passed  into  this  a  keyhole  saw  with  the  teeth  turned 
upward,  and  rapidly  sawed  through  the  junction  of  the 
malar  with  the  frontal  bone. 

The  saw  was  then  turned  over,  with  the  teeth  directed 
downward;  and,  beginning  at  the  same  point,  the  floor 
of  the  orbital  cavity  was  sawed  through  until  the  antrum 
of  Highmore  was  bisected  as  far  down  as  the  level  of  the 
root  of  the  teeth  of  that  side.  A  hook  was  then  placed  in 
the  outer  angle  of  the  orbit,  and  a  quick,  sharp  jerk  frac- 
tured the  zygomatic  process  of  the  temporal  bone,  dis- 
placing the  side  of  the  face,  completely  exposing  the  antrum 
of  Highmore,  the  zygomatic  fossa,  and  the  pterygo-  and 
spheno-maxillary  fissures.  The  hemorrhage  was  profuse, 
but  was  controlled  by  rapidly  packing  sponges  into  the 
wound  and  making  firm  compression.  The  pulse  jumped 
from  eighty  to  one  hundred  and  forty,  and  the  patient 
seemed  about  to  expire  in  collapse.  At  this  juncture  one 
pint  of  saline  solution,  already  prepared,  and  kept  so  hot 
that  the  hand  could  scarcely  be  borne  in  it  with  comfort 
(iio°  to  120°  F.),  was  allowed  to  run  into  the  vein. 

The  heart  rallied  at  once,  and  the  pulse  came  down  to 
eighty-five  beats  to  the  minute.  The  tumor  was  again 
exposed,  and  with  a  periosteal  elevator  lifted  out  of  the 
antrum  of  Highmore,  its  attachments  to  the  pterygoid 
process  of  the  sphenoid  bone  being  separated  by  removing 

33  505 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  periosteum.  By  opening  the  patient's  mouth  and  thus 
depressing  the  coronoid  process  of  the  inferior  maxilla,  the 
pterygomaxillary  fissure  and  the  zygomatic  fossa  were  well 
exposed.  The  whole  antrum  was  packed  with  a  long  wick 
of  iodoform  gauze,  which  was  allowed  to  project  at  the 
anterior  inferior  angle  of  the  wound.  The  bone,  which  had 
been  temporarily  displaced  with  the  soft  parts  adherent, 
was  then  brought  back  into  position  and  held  there  by 
stitching  the  soft  parts  along  the  line  of  incision.  A  bandage 
and  compress  were  applied  in  order  to  maintain  approxima- 
tion. No  sutures  were  inserted  in  the  bones.  The  patient 
made  an  uninterrupted  recovery.  Nineteen  years  after 
the  operation  he  is  entirely  well.  The  bones  are  united 
in  their  normal  position;  he  has  perfect  use  and  function 
of  the  eyeball,  and,  although  the  filaments  of  the  facial 
nerve  were  divided,  he  still  has  very  fair  motion  of  the 
orbicularis  palpebrarum  muscle.  Disfigurement  from  the 
scar  is  insignificant. 

Besides  the  novelty  of  this  procedure  there  are  three 
points  of  interest.  First,  the  character  of  the  anesthetic, 
morphine  being  almost  entirely  relied  upon.  The  amount 
of  chloroform  taken  was  only  two  drachms  in  an  hour  and 
forty  minutes  of  narcosis.  I  have  done  a  number  of  major 
operations  about  the  respiratory  tract  with  this  combina- 
tion of  morphine  and  chloroform  or  morphine  and  ether, 
and  in  one  instance  of  removal  of  the  larjmx  I  used  nothing 
but  morphine  and  obtained  complete  narcosis  and  anes- 
thesia, the  operation  lasting  an  hour  and  thirty-two  minutes. 
The  patient  remained  perfectly  quiescent  during  the  opera- 
tion, suffering  no  shock  and  with  no  memory  of  pain. 

The  second  important  point  is  the  value  of  transfusion 
with  a  salt  solution  to  prevent  collapse  and  shock  under 

506 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

great  and  sudden  loss  of  blood.  During  this  operation  five 
pints  in  all  were  allowed  to  run  into  the  veins,  and  the 
blood  became  so  thin  that  practically  salt  water  ran  out  of 
the  vessels  in  the  line  of  the  incision,  showing  the  red  cor- 
puscles were  almost  exhausted ;  and  yet  we  were  able  to  make 
the  patient's  pulse  drop  from  130  and  140  to  80  or  90  beats 
per  minute,  full  and  strong,  showing  that  the  heart  had 
plenty  of  volume  to  act  upon  and  so  did  well. 

Finally,  in  the  persistence  of  motion  in  the  orbicular 
muscle  of  the  lids  after  division  of  the  branches  of  the 
seventh  nen,^e. 

For  the  following  study  of  the  nervous  distribution  of  the 
orbicularis  palpebrarum  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  J.  A. 
Bodine,  of  the  New  York  Polyclinic: 

"The  orbicular  portion  of  the  muscle  is  suppHed  solely 
by  the  facial  nerve.  This  portion,  however,  is  not  necessary 
to  the  act  of  closing  the  eye.  In  fact,  the  palpebral  por- 
tion is  quite  distinct  from  the  orbicular,  and  its  action  is 
habitually  involuntary.  It  receives  nerve  impulses  from 
the  sympathetic  plexus  around  the  cavernous  sinus.  In 
addition  to  the  nerve  fibers  from  the  seventh,  the  upper  lid 
may  and  does  get  motor  impulse  thus:  the  ophthalmic,  or 
first,  division  of  the  fifth  receives  fibers  from  the  fourth  and 
third,  and  frequently  from  the  sixth,  prior  to  its  division 
into  nasal,  frontal,  and  lachrymal.  Some  or  all  of  these 
motor  fibers  may  go  with  the  lachr3'mal  branch  of  the 
ophthalmic.  After  the  lachrymal  supplies  the  tear-gland 
it  sends  fibers  to  the  upper  lid.     (Gray,  page  760.) 

"The  lachrymal  not  infrequently  arises  by  two  filaments, 
one  from  the  ophthalmic  and  one  from  the  sixth  nerve; 
thus  the  upper  lid  would  get  motor  impulse  from  the 
abducens  (sixth). 

507 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

"Again,  if  the  ophthalmic  has  received  motor  fibers  from 
the  fourth,  third,  and  sixth,  as  already  stated,  the  supra- 
orbital branch  of  the  frontal  nerve,  which  goes  partly  to 
the  upper  lid,  would  carry  motor  influence,  and  from  this 
same  (frontal)  nerve  the  lower  lid  could  be  supplied  through 
the  infratrochlear. 

"Of  course  the  act  of  lifting  the  lid  depends  upon  the 
levator  palpebrae  supplied  by  the  third  nerve." 

Fortunately,  so  formidable  an  operation  as  the  one  just 
detailed  will  rarely  be  called  for.  The  vast  majority  of 
neoplasms  of  the  naso- pharynx  can  be  successfully  and 
satisfactorily  reached  through  an  incision  directly  into  the 
antrum  of  Highmore. 


X 

CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  THE  SURGERY  OF  THE  BONES TRANS- 
PLANTATION OF  THE  PROXIMAL  END  OF  THE  ULNA  TO  THE 
DISTAL  END  OF  THE  RADIUS  IN  AN  UNUNITED  COLLES' 
FRACTURE 

W.  M.  Y.,  at  the  age  of  nine,  suffered  a  compoimd  right 
CoUes'  fracture,  which,  becoming  infected,  resulted  in  non- 
union, destruction  of  the  epiphysis,  and  arrest  of  gro'Ri^h, 
with  extensive  atrophy  of  the  proximal  end  of  the  radius. 

Six  years  later  the  right  hand  was  deflected  sharply  tow- 
ard the  radial  side,  and,  having  no  bony  support,  hung  loose 
like  a  flail,  and  was  practically  useless.  The  ulna,  contin- 
uing to  grow,  was  slightly  curved  in  the  direction  of  the 
radius. 

Operation. — The  end  of  the  posterior  surface  of  the  distal 
fragment  of  the  broken  radius  was  freshened  by  section  with 
a  chisel,  and  the  ulna  divided  with  the  Gigli  saw  on  the 
same  level.  The  tissues  were  separated  from  the  bones 
anteriorly  and  posteriorly,  and  the  cut  surface  of  the  longer 
(posterior)  portion  of  the  ulna  was  carried  over  and  wired 
to  the  anterior  fragment  of  the  radius.  The  anterior  ex- 
tremity of  the  ulna  was  then  dropped  back,  or  overlapped 
one  inch  to  compensate  for  the  accidental  shortening  of  the 
radius.  The  contiguous  surfaces  of  the  periosteum  were  lift- 
ed, and  the  bone  chipped  with  the  chisel  in  order  to  ex- 
cite osteogenesis,  and  a  silver  wire-collar  was  thrown  around 

509 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

the  opposing  sections  to  hold  them  firmly  in  contact.  This 
manipulation  carried  the  hand  in  a  straight  position,  and 
at  the  same  time  brought  the  spindle-shaped  atrophied 
posterior  fragment  of  the  radius  in  contact  with  the  an- 
terior fragment  from  which  it  had  long  been  separated. 

Subsequent  History. — Two  years  after  the  operation  the 
radiograph  showed  perfect  fusion  between  the  two  frag- 
ments of  the  ulna,  and  between  the  bone  and  the  anterior 
fragment  of  the  broken  radius.  It  also  shows  the  very 
remarkably  improved  condition  of  the  proximal  portion  of 
the  radius.  This  is  no  longer  spindle-shaped,  but,  having 
reunited  itself  to  the  anterior  fragment  proper,  it  has  very 
appreciably  thickened  as  a  result  of  its  increased  function. 

The  hand  has  been  restored  to  usefulness,  and  the  arm 
has  become  strong,  so  that  the  lad  can  use  it  for  practically 
any  purpose.  While  supination  and  pronation  have  been 
lost,  rotary  movements  at  the  shoulder  and  elbow  have 
been  acquired  and  have  greatly  lessened  the  inconvenience 
of  the  loss  of  rotation  in  the  forearm. 

A  letter  received  five  years  after  the  operation  says,  ' '  The 
developments  in  the  arm  have  been  most  remarkable  and 
surprising." 

Green-stick  Fracture  of  the  Radius  in  the  Posterior  Third — 
Extreme  Supination  of  the  Posterior  and  Pronation  of  the 
Anterior  Fragments — Union  in  this  Position  with  Complete 
Loss  of  Pronation  and  Supination. — M.  C,  a  Cuban  lad,  in 
a  fall  from  a  horizontal  bar,  had  injured  his  forearm.  There 
had  been  no  treatment.  The  pain  suffered  at  the  time 
gradually  disappeared,  but  when  after  three  or  four  weeks 
he  tried  to  use  the  arm  it  was  discovered  that  the  power 
of  pronation  and  supination  had  been  lost. 

An  X-ray  picture  showed  that  there  had  been  a  fracture 

510 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

in  the  posterior  third  of  the  radius.  As  the  two  bones  of 
the  forearm  were  not  in  contact  at  any  point,  and  as  there 
was  no  muscular  paralysis,  interosseous  union  and  injury 
to  the  nerves  were  eliminated.  A  careful  study  of  this  case 
convinced  me  that  there  had  been  a  green-stick  fracture 
without  displacement  of  the  fragments.  The  pronator 
radii  teres,  no  longer  opposed  by  the  supinator  brevis,  had 
rotated  the  anterior  fragment  into  complete  pronation  and 
fixed  it  there,  while  the  supinator  brevis,  acting  on  the 
upper  end,  had  rotated  that  fragment  in  an  opposite  direc- 
tion and  held  it  fixed  until  bony  union  at  the  point  of  frac- 
ture had  taken  place. 

Under  ether  the  bone  was  divided  at  the  point  of  frac- 
ture, the  ends  seized  with  lion-jaw  forceps,  and  by  forcible 
inward  rotation  for  the  upper  and  outward  for  the  lower 
end  the  contracted  muscles  were  divulsed.  The  ends  were 
held  in  this  corrected  position,  splints  applied,  and  normal 
reunion  secured  with  restoration  of  supination  and  pronation 
as  complete  as  before  the  injury. 

Novel  Procedure  for  Restoring  the  Anterior  Extremity  of 
the  Radius. — T.  A.,  a  male  about  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
in  excellent  general  health,  was  operated  on,  November  15, 
1890.  A  38-caliber-pistol  ball  entered  through  the  articular 
surface  of  the  wrist,  traversed  and  destroyed  three  inches 
of  the  carpal  end  of  the  radius.  Some  of  the  fragments  were 
carried  away  and  lost,  while  others  were  embedded  in  the 
contiguous  muscles  and  under  the  skin.  These  were  care- 
fully removed,  placed  in  a  solution  of  warm  mercuric 
chloride  (i  to  3,000)  and  kept  at  about  100°  Fahrenheit.  A 
hole  was  drilled  through  the  proximal  end  of  the  radius  and 
the  scaphoid  and  through  each  of  the  dozen  fragments  of 
the  shattered  bone,  and  these  were  threaded  like  beads  on 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

a  silver  wire  secured  first  to  the  scaphoid  and  then  to  the 
radius  above.  All  of  these  fragments  survived  and  fused, 
and  by  their  presence  stimulated  osteogenesis,  and  formed 
a  new  and  useful  radius. 

Fracture  of  the  Hip  in  Childbirth. — January  26,  1887,  I 
was  called  to  see  an  infant  just  born.  The  accoucher  in 
making  traction  by  means  of  the  fingers  inserted  into  the 
flexures  at  the  groin,  in  a  case  of  breech  presentation,  in 
order  to  make  a  rapid  delivery,  had  caused  a  fracture  of  the 
left  femur  immediately  below  the  lesser  trochanter.  The 
fracture  was  very  evident,  for  when  extension  was  made  on 
the  leg  the  upper  fragment  projected  forward,  the  end  being 
felt  just  beneath  the  skin.  The  position  of  this  fragment 
was  evidently  due  to  the  still  contracted  condition  of  the 
psoas  and  iliacus  muscles,  since  the  thigh  had  as  yet  not  been 
extended.  The  only  position  of  the  thigh  which  brought 
the  fragments  in  line  and  in  apposition  was  by  flexing  it 
firmly  against  the  abdomen  just  as  it  had  been  in  utero. 

In  this  position,  with  the  leg  at  an  angle  of  ninety  degrees 
to  the  thigh,  firm  rolls  of  cotton  batting  were  applied  along 
the  abdomen  and  on  either  side  of  the  thigh.  While  ex- 
tension was  made,  the  lower  portion  of  the  chest,  the  entire 
abdomen,  and  the  thigh  were  included  in  a  plaster-of-Paris 
cuirass.  The  bandages  did  not  encircle  the  thigh,  but  in- 
cluded it  in  the  cast  which  surrounded  the  body.  Plaster 
bandages  were  applied  to  the  leg  from  the  ankle  to  the  knee. 
To  secure  complete  immobility,  these  were  incorporated  into 
the  general  cuirass.  The  right  leg  was  left  free,  and  the 
plaster  cut  away  so  as  to  permit  of  the  necessary  attentions 
to  the  infant.  Firm  extension  from  the  flexed  knee  in  an 
upward  direction  was  made  until  the  plaster  hardened. 

At  the  end  of  three  weeks  the  dressing  was  removed,  and 

512 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

union  without  deformity  or  shortening  had  resulted.  This 
patient  is  now  a  well-developed  woman  twenty-six  years 
old,  and  there  is  no  difference  in  the  length  or  functions  of 
the  two  extremities. 

To  the  date  of  this  experience  I  had  not  heard  or  read 
of  this  complication.  Dr.  Edgar  Wilkinson,  of  Hamilton, 
Bermuda,  writes  me  that  he  has  met  with  a  similar  case 
and  carried  out  with  perfect  success  the  exact  treatment 
as  given  in  my  book  on  surgery. 


XI 

HIP-JOINT  DISEASE  TREATED  BY  COMBINATION  OF  HUTCHIN- 
SON's  high  SHOE  AND  CRUTCHES  AND  SAYRE's  LONG 
EXTENSION   SPLINT 

In  October,  1879,  I  treated  my  first  case  of  hip-joint 
disease  by  adding  to  the  excellent  and  well-known  hip- joint 
apparatus  of  Professor  Lewis  A.  Sayre  the  elevation  of  the 
shoe  of  the  well  foot  and  the  use  of  crutches.  This  method 
swings  the  lame  leg  in  the  air  free  from  any  possible  friction 
of  the  joint  in  the  act  of  walking,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is 
protected  by  the  Sayre  splint.  I  have  used  it  in  a  number 
of  cases  with  great  satisfaction.  In  one  of  my  later  cases 
a  boy  of  nine  years  recovered  so  thoroughly  all  the  functions 
of  the  joint  that  he  ran  second  in  a  five-mile  Marathon  race, 
defeating  some  twenty  competitors.  In  all  these  cases  of 
the  tuberculous  dyscrasia,  tuberculin  injections  as  now  given 
at  the  Polyclinic  should  be  employed. 

TREATMENT    OF     CARIES     OF    THE     LUMBAR    SPINE     BY    CON- 
TINUOUS  EXTENSION  ^ 

Without  suspension,  as  advised  when  the  Sayre  solid 
plaster-of-Paris  jacket  is  applied,  the  patient  stands  erect. 
Over  the  tightly  fitting  knit  undershirt,  two  jackets  or  zones 
of  plaster  of  Paris  are  applied,  the  lower  edge  of  the  upper 
being  just  above,  while  the  upper  edge  of  the  lower  is  just 
'  Read  before  the  New  York  County  Medical  Society,  January  27,  1879. 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

below  the  point  of  disease.  The  one  catches  over  and  rests 
on  the  hips,  while  the  other  meets  the  upward  expansion 
of  the  chest  and  scapulae.  As  the  plaster  bandages  are 
setting,  three  zinc  plates  about  two  by  four  inches  (per- 
forated with  numerous  holes  to  make  them  fasten  readily) 
are  placed  in  each  section  of  the  jacket.  To  the  center  of 
each  plate  is  securely  riveted  a  flattened  staple  of  iron. 
One  of  these  is  fastened  over  the  spinal  column  above  and 
below,  one  under  each  arm,  and  one  directly  underneath 
these  over  the  hips.  These  plates  are  securely  held  in  posi- 
tion by  several  turns  of  plaster  bandage,  passing  alternately 
above  and  below  the  staples,  which  are  left  exposed.  As 
soon  as  the  jackets  are  firmly  set  the  extension  bars  are 
applied. 

These  bars  consist  of  a  shoulder  at  each  end,  and  a  solid 
section  cut  with  cogs  and  grooves,  which  telescopes  into 
a  hollow  section,  with  a  key  for  lengthening  or  shortening, 
and  a  spring-catch  to  hold  it  fixed  at  any  point.  This  is 
the  exact  mechanism  used  in  Dr.  Sayre's  knee-joint  splint. 
The  shoulders  are  caught  in  the  staples  riveted  to  the  im- 
movable plates,  and  the  requisite  extension  is  secured  by 
means  of  the  key.  In  this  way  it  can  be  graduated  exactly, 
the  weight  of  the  upper  half  of  the  body  being  transferred 
from  the  diseased  spinal  column  to  the  supporting  bars 
anchored  in  the  upper  and  lower  segments  of  the  jacket. 

FEMORAL    HERNIA.      A    NEW    AND    SUCCESSFUL    METHOD     OF 
OBLITERATING  THE  FEMORAL  CANAL 

I  have  employed  for  many  years  the  method  of  MacEwen 
of  folding  into  a  mass  a  portion  of  the  sac  of  an  inguinal 
hernia,  and  of  holding  it  between  the  inner  surface  of  the 
abdominal  wall  and  the  outer  surface  of  the  peritoneum 

5^5 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

lining  that  wall.  This  procedure  entirely  obliterates  the 
hernial  sac  at  its  neck.  As  soon  as  I  became  acquainted 
with  this  procedure  I  began  to  use  it  in  all  my  operations 
on  the  sac  of  a  femoral  hernia,  until  in  1903  I  devised  the 
following  modification  which  I  have  used  in  every  subse- 
quent operation  for  femoral  hernia;  in  each  instance  with- 
out recurrence,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  inform  myself. 

Instead  of  folding  the  sac  over  upon  itself  and  holding 
it  fixed  between  the  layer  of  the  peritoneum,  which  lines  the 
abdominal  wall  in  front  and  the  muscle,  I  turn  it  completely 
outside  in  by  the  following  method:  After  the  hernial  sac 
has  been  properly  exposed,  opened,  and  the  reduction 
effected,  it  is  cut  off  about  one-half  to  three-fourths  of  an 
inch  distal  to  the  outer  margin  of  the  femoral  canal,  and 
the  stump  and  neck  of  the  sac  is  carefully  separated  by  dry 
dissection  from  the  femoral  and  iliac  veins,  and  the  other 
contiguous  structures.  A  number  two  chromicized  ten-day 
catgut  suture  twelve  inches  long  is  carried  through  one  side 
of  the  sac  near  the  edge  and  the  suture  tied.  The  nearly 
straight  Hagedom  needle,  four  or  five  inches  long  and  very 
slightly  curved  at  the  point,  remains  threaded  with  this 
catgut  loop,  while  a  second  needle  is  attached  to  the  free 
end  and  is  used  to  fasten  the  suture  in  the  ring  of  the  sac 
exactly  opposite  the  one  first  inserted. 

The  index  finger  of  the  most  convenient  hand  is  now 
carried  into  the  sac,  through  the  canal  into  the  peritoneal 
cavity,  and  a  careful  examination  made  by  the  touch  to 
assure  the  operator  that  there  are  no  adhesions  near  the 
internal  orifice  of  the  sac.  The  finger  is  then  withdrawn, 
and  the  tip  of  the  long  needle,  held  firmly  in  the  holder 
which  clasps  it  near  the  eye,  is  buried  or  well  depressed  into 
the  skin  of  the  palmar  surface  of  the  end  of  the  finger,  which, 

S16 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

serving  as  a  guide,  is  then  again  carried  into  the  sac  and 
through  the  canal,  the  needle  remaining  steadily  fixed  until 
its  point  is  placed  safely  against  the  inner  surface  of  the 
abdominal  peritoneum,  where  it  is  made  to  transfix  this 
and  the  muscular  wall,  and  is  brought  through  the  integu- 
ment at  a  point  an  inch  or  more  beyond  the  upper  level  of 
the  internal  femoral  ring  or  mouth  of  the  canal.  Traction 
on  the  double  catgut  loop  now  turns  the  sac  completely 
outside  in,  entirely  obliterating  it.  It  is  held  safely  in  posi- 
tion by  tying  the  two  ends  of  the  divided  loop  over  a  pencil 
of  gauze.  I  have  found  no  difficulty  in  avoiding  the  sper- 
matic cord  or  the  inferior  epigastric  vessels. 

A  class-room  illustration  of  this  technique  is  readily 
made  by  seizing  and  holding  the  edge  of  the  coat-sleeve  of 
one  arm  with  the  hand  of  that  side,  and  then  removing  the 
coat,  thus  turning  the  sleeve  completely  inside  out. 

The  Author's  Bandage  Covering  the  Heel  and  Foot  with  a 
Single  Roller. — This  method  of  bandaging  the  entire  foot 
with  a  single  roller  was  devised  in  1875.  Begin  by  placing 
bits  of  absorbent  cotton  between  the  toes.  Take  a  roller 
from  two  to  two  and  a  half  inches  wide,  and  about  two 
yards  long.  Lay  the  end  of  the  bandage  parallel  with 
the  axis  of  the  leg,  half-way  between  the  two  malleoli  in 
front,  and  carry  the  roller  by  the  inner  side  to  the  heel,  so 
that  the  middle  of  the  bandage  will  be  over  the  center  of 
the  heel's  convexity,  and  on  to  the  starting-point.  Next, 
make  another  turn  around  the  ankle,  carrying  the  posterior 
edge  of  the  bandage  over  the  center  of  the  turn  that  has  just 
preceded  it,  and  make  one  or  two  other  turns  in  front  of 
this  until  the  heel  is  completely  covered. 

The  bandage  is  then  carried  around  the  heel  in  the  same 
direction,  so  that  its  anterior  border  rests  on  the  middle 

S^7 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  the  first  turn,  and  the  roller  is  carried  from  the  fibular 
side  of  the  heel  across  the  dorsum  of  the  foot  to  the  tibial 
side  of  the  great  toe.  It  then  travels  under  the  bases  of 
the  toes  to  the  little  toe,  making  a  couple  of  complete  turns 
aroimd  the  foot  at  this  point,  and  when  the  roller  has  again 
reached  the  fibular  side  of  the  little  toe  it  is  made  to  cross 
the  dorsum  of  the  foot  obliquely  to  the  tibial  side  of  the  heel, 
keeping  the  lower  edge  of  the  bandage  about  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  above  the  bottom  of  the  heel.  Repeat  this  figure- 
of-eight  turn  until  the  entire  foot  is  thoroughly  concealed. 
It  is  best  to  cut  with  the  scissors  each  turn  of  the  roller 
about  half  through  just  when  it  crosses  the  front  of  the  ankle, 
so  that  the  accumulation  of  the  bandage  at  this  point  may  not 
interfere  with  the  movements  of  the  ankle-joint.  The  cross- 
ings of  the  figure-of-eight  bandage  on  the  dorsum  of  the  foot 
should  be  kept  a  little  to  the  fibular  side  of  the  median  line. 
A  Simple  Device  for  the  Prevention  oj  Snoring. — Snoring 
is  the  noise  caused  in  the  act  of  breathing  by  the  vibration 
or  fluttering  of  the  pendulous  soft-palate  or  curtain  which 
hangs  down  from  the  posterior  margin  of  the  roof  of  the 
mouth.  It  is  possible  for  the  air,  which  is  being  carried 
into  the  lungs  in  breathing,  to  pass  not  only  through  the 
nostrils — the  natural  and  proper  way — but  through  the 
mouth  at  the  same  time.  If  one  will  keep  the  lips  closely 
compressed,  and  allow  the  air  to  pass  in  through  the  nostrils, 
it  is  practically  impossible  to  snore.  The  same  is  true  in  a 
lesser  degree  if  the  nostrils  are  closed,  and  breathing  is  only 
through  the  mouth.  The  curtain  will  scarcely  vibrate  or 
flutter  in  a  single  current  or  stream  of  air;  but  when  the 
mouth  is  open  the  two  currents  are  rushing  in,  and  the 
hanging  curtain,  caught  between  them,  is  thrown  into  au- 
dible vibration — and  this  is  snoring. 

Si8 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

It  follows  that  any  device  which  prevents  the  lower  jaw 
diiring  the  relaxation  of  sleep  from  dropping  down  and  thus 
opening  the  mouth  will  shut  out  the  one  unnatural  current 
of  air  and  prevent  snoring. 

I  devised  an  apparatus  which  consists  of  a  simple  cap 
fitting  the  head  snugly;  a  cap  of  soft  material  fitting  the 
chin;  and  a  piece  of  elastic  webbing  tacked  to  the  chin- 
piece  and  to  the  head-cap  near  the  ears.  The  webbing  can 
be  made  more  or  less  tense  as  may  be  required  to  effect  the 
closure  of  the  mouth.  It  is  so  simple  that  any  one  can 
make  it,  and  should  recommend  itself  to  those  individuals 
who,  in  the  toils  of  this  unfortunate  habit,  are  a  nuisance  to 
everybody  except  themselves. 


XII 

VERSES 
TO   MY  MOTHER 

Deal  gently  with  her,  Time!    these  many  years 

Of  life  have  brought  more  smiles  with  them  than  tears. 

Lay  not  thy  hand  too  harshly  on  her  now, 

But  trace  decline  so  slowly  on  her  brow 

That  (like  a  sunset  of  the  northern  clime, 

Where  twilight  lingers  in  the  summer-time, 

And  fades  at  last  into  the  silent  night, 

Ere  one  may  note  the  passing  of  the  light) 

So  may  she  pass — since  'tis  the  common  lot — 

As  one  who,  resting,  sleeps,  and  knows  it  not. 

From  the  Century  Magazine,  January,  1902. 

MY  SWEETHEART'S  FACE 

My  kingdom  is  my  sweetheart's  face, 
And  these  the  boundaries  I  trace: 
Northward  her  forehead  fair; 
Beyond  a  wilderness  of  auburn  hair; 
A  rosy  cheek  to  east  and  west; 

Her  little  mouth. 

The  sunny  south, 
It  is  the  south  that  I  love  best. 
520 


MY    sweetheart's    FACE 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Her  eyes,  two  crystal  lakes, 

Rippling  with  light, 
Caught  from  the  sun  by  day, 

The  stars  by  night. 

The  dimples  in 

Her  cheeks  and  chin 
Are  snares  which  Love  hath  set, 

And  I  have  fallen  in! 

From  Harper's  Magazine,  June,  1892.     Printed  by  permission  in  A  New 
Library  of  Poetry  and  Song  by  William  CuUen  Bryant,  1895. 


TO  A  SOUTHERN  BELLE  MARRIED  TO  A 
FRENCH  NOBLEMAN 

Beneath  the  sky 

Where  you  and  I 
Were  born;    where  beauty  grows. 

Up  from  the  sod 

At  touch  of  God 
There  sprang  a  stately  rose. 

It  grew,  and  men  in  wonderment 

Beheld  the  beauteous  thing — 
Alas!    for  Hope  which  wooing  went. 

And  Love  which  sorrowing. 
Learns  that  the  flower  it  loves  the  best. 
The  one  it  guards  the  tenderest. 
The  hand  of  Fate  transplants! 
Our  Southern  rose 
Now  sweetly  grows 
Among  the  hills  of  France. 
34  521 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Go  search  the  gardens  of  Vendee 
Which  poets  long  have  sung — 
Go  cull  the  flowers  that  blush  the  hills 
Of  Picardie  among. 

Land  of  romance! 

Fair  land  of  France! 
With  all  your  glorious  flowers, 

Lilies  of  old 

And  cloth  of  gold, 
We  needs  must  lend  you  ours! 

Right  well,  I  guess, 

For  loveliness, 

For  beauty  in  repose, 
There  is  no  lily  in  all  France 

Can  match  our  Southern  rose. 


1882. 


THE  LETTER  L 

A   CHARADE 

I  am  not  in  the  earth  so  fair, 
Nor  in  the  deep,  deep  sea; 

Nor  deem  me  with  the  powers  of  air- 
They  hold  no  place  for  me. 

And  yet  'tis  strange  if  o'er  the  sea 
You  tread  a  foreign  strand 

You'll  find,  however  quick  you  be, 
I  am  the  first  to  land. 

I  never  yet  was  known  in  sin 
But  put  an  end  to  evil; 

522 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

Still  for  all  this  there  had  not  been 
Without  me  hell  nor  devil. 


Now,  if  you  fain  would  know  my  name/ 

Come  read  it  on  my  vault; 
Nor  think,  though  I'm  so  much  to  blame, 

I  e'er  was  twice  in  fault. 


1876. 


TO  A  COQUETTE 

Lines  written  at  the  request  of  a  friend,  to  a  lady  who  had  coquetted  with 
him  and  had  returned  his  letters,  sending  him  his  dismissal  in  verse. 

Fair  maid,  thou  art  not  fair,  which  paradox 
Is  truth  although  a  seeming  contradiction. 
And  since  the  truth,  alas!    thy  sex  most  shocks, 
I  may  accuse  thee  by  rehearsing  fiction. 
The  story's  old.     'Tis  of  a  jar  or  box 
Which,  under  threat  of  lasting  malediction 
To  all  mankind,  the  gods  had  closed  the  lid. 
All  caskets  else  it  was  allowed  to  ope, 
But,  being  woman,  that  which  was  forbid 
Was  just  exactly  what  Pandora  did. 
The  story's  told.     The  keyless  lock  was  raped 
And  all  of  evil  that  therein  was  hid. 
Sorrow  and  Woe,  Death  and  Despair  escaped. 
Frightened,  she  slammed  the  lid  and  shut  in  Hope. 
But  thou,  more  cruel,  fair  and  yet  not  fair. 
Let  Hope  escape  and  left  for  me  Despair, 

523 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 
DU  BIST  Vv^IE  EINE   BLUME 

Du  bist  wie  eine  Bliime 

So  hold  und  schon  und  rein; 

Ich  schau'  dich  an  und  Wehmuth 
Schleicht  mir  in's  Herz  hinein. 

Mir  ist,  als  ob  ich  die  Hande 
Auf's  Haupt  dir  legen  soUt', 

Betend,  dass  Gott  dich  erhalte 
So  rein  und  schon  und  hold. 


THOU  ART  AS  A  FLOWER 

(translation  from  Heine) 

As  gentle,  pure,  and  fair 

As  some  sweet  flower  Thou  art! 
I  look  at  Thee  and  sadness 

Comes  steahng  through  my  heart. 

And  on  Thy  head  I  lay 

My  hands  with  this  one  prayer, 
That  God  may  ever  keep  Thee 

So  gentle,  pure,  and  fair. 

DAS  HERZ 

Zwei  Kammem  hat  das  Herz, 

Drin  wohnen 
Die  Freude  und  der  Schmerz. 
5  =  4 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Wacht  Freude  in  der  einen, 

So  schlummert 
Der  Schmerz  still  in  der  seinen. 

O  Freude,  habe  Acht ! 

Sprich  leise 
Dass  nicht  der  Schmerz  erwacht! 


THE  HEART 

(translated    from   the    GERMAN    OF    NEUMANN) 

Two  chambers  has  the  heart, 

And  Sorrow 
And  Joy  dwell  there  apart. 

In  this,  when  Joy  awakes; 

In  that  one. 
Sorrow  its  slumber  takes. 

O  Joy,  thy  vigil  keep! 

Speak  gently 
That  Sorrow  still  may  sleep. 

TO  L.  E. 

The  rose  is  dead  in  June! 

Untimely  death 
Came  ere  the  summer's  noon 
Or  autumn's  breath 
Had  withered  one  fair,  spotless  leaf  of  those 
Sweet  charms  which  made  her  beauteous  as  a  rose. 

525 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

Where  was  that  pity,  God, 

Which  watcheth  all? — 
The  hHes  of  the  field. 
The  sparrow's  fall? 
Was  she  not  more  than  these?     Or  was  it  best 
Heaven  should  reclaim  the  loved  and  loveliest? 

Cypress  and  yew  and  Peace! 

Winds  of  the  south, 
Upon  your  scented  wings 

Bring  to  her  without  cease, 

From  leafy  mouth 
Of  all  sweet  blooming  things, 
From  lands  of  endless  spring, 
Oh!    balmy  south  wind,  bring 
Fragrance  without  surcease, 
So  may  she  sweetly  sleep  that  death  will  seem 
A  dream  of  life,  which  is  itself  a  dream. 

Memphis  Appeal,  1882. 

MY  NORTHERN   STAR 

DEDICATED   TO   FLORENCE    NIGHTINGALE   SIMS 

Star  of  the  North!     Thou  ever-constant  star, 
Where'er  I  wander  o'er  the  land  or  sea. 

Thou  art  my  beacon  shining  from  afar. 
Unto  the  haven  of  rest  thou  guidest  me. 

All  else  is  changing  in  the  realm  of  space; 

Suns,  planets,  systems,  countless  in  array, 
March  ever  on  by  thy  abiding  place; 

God  holds  thee  in  His  hand  to  show  the  way. 
526 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

Upon  the  void  where  chaos  dwelt  with  night, 
His  spirit  moved,  and  lo!   Creation's  morn! 

Let  there  be  Hght!   He  said,  and  there  was  Hght, 
And  thou  the  first  of  all  the  stars  was  born! 

First  to  be  kindled  with  celestial  fire 

Ere  the  blue  dome  with  angels'  voices  rang, 

Thou  wast  the  leader  of  the  heavenly  choir, 
When  first  the  morning  stars  together  sang. 


1912. 


HOCH  DER   KAISER! 

I  am  the  Right-Divine, 
Heaven  and  Earth  are  mine; 
If  you  question  my  right 
You  must  stand  up  and  fight. 
Behold!     My  Battle-Hne! 

Come  to  the  War-Lord's  feast, 
Men  of  the  West  and  East; 
Hear  me  pray  to  my  God 
As  I  fatten  the  sod 
With  bones  of  man  and  beast. 

Mine  is  the  War-Machine. 
The  earth  that  once  was  green, 
I  make  red  with  the  blood 
That  I  shed  in  a  flood 
In  the  name  of  the  Nazarene! 
September  i^  19 14. 

527 


GENEALOGY 

John  Allan  Wyeth,  fourth  and  youngest  child  and  only  surviv- 
ing son  of  Louis  Weiss  Wyeth  and  Euphemia  Allan,  was  bom  at 
Missionary  Station,  Marshall  County,  Alabama,  May  26,  1845. 

Descended  from  Welsh,  Scotch,  English,  and  German  ancestors 
who  settled  in  America,  a  grandfather  of  each  of  his  parents  fought 
in  the  Revolutionary  War.  for  the  Independence  of  the  Colonies. 

PATERNAL  ANCESTOR 

Nicholas  Wyeth  (or  Wythe,  as  the  name  appears  in  some  of  the 
earlier  records)  and  a  brother  came  from  England  to  America  in 
1630;  the  former  settling  at  New  Town  (Newton),  near  Boston, 
Massachusetts,  the  latter  joining  the  colonists  of  Virginia.^ 

Nicholas  Wyeth  was  born  in  England  in  1595,  and  died  at 
Cambridge  July  19,  1680.  He  came  to  Massachusetts  with  one 
of  the  Winthrop  colonies  in  1630,  and  after  five  years  at  New- 
ton moved  to  Cambridge.  According  to  Paige's  History  of  Cam- 
bridge, "about  1640  he  became  the  owner  of  a  landed  estate  at 
Cambridge,  which  for  more  than  two  centuries  remained  in  pos- 
session of  his  descendants  in  the  male  line."  Wyeth  Street,  near 
Harvard  College,  is  named  in  his  honor.  On  his  tombstone  is 
engraved:   " Nicholas  Wyeth  1595-1680.     Settled  Newton  1630." 

^  The  Virginia  branch  of  this  family  became  extinct  at  the  death  of  George 
Wythe,  LL.D.,  who,  an  only  child,  born  in  1726,  died  childless  in  1806  and 
was  buried  in  St.  John's  churchyard  in  Richmond,  Virginia. 

He  was  the  first  chancellor  of  Virginia,  the  friend  and  counselor  of  Wash- 
ington, member  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, and  Professor  of  Law  in  William  and  Mary  College.  John  Mar- 
shall, Thomas  Jefferson,  James  Monroe,  and  Henry  Clay  were  law  pupils  in 
his  office,  the  latter  in  his  earlier  youth  serving  as  his  private  secretary.  He 
emancipated  his  slaves  and  made  liberal  provision  for  their  subsistence. 

Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  of  him  as,  "The  honor  of  his  own  and  the  model 
of  all  future  times." 

528 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

John,  fourth  child  of  Nicholas,  was  born  at  Cambridge,  July 
i5»  1655,  and  died  December  13,  1706. 

Ebenezer,  sixth  child  of  John,  was  baptized  July  24,  1698,  and 
died  April  3,  1754, 

Ebenezer  II.,  eldest  of  six  children  of  Ebenezer  I.,  was  bom  in 
Cambridge  April  8,  1727,  and  died  there  August  4,  1799.  This 
man,  great-grandfather  of  our  subject,  was  a  farmer,  and  from 
1781  to  1790  ser\^ed  as  "Selectman"  (one  of  the  governors)  of 
Cambridge  Township.  He,  two  of  his  sons,  and  two  nephews 
were  of  the  seventy-five  men  of  Captain  Samuel  Thatcher's  com- 
pany who  attacked  the  British  at  or  near  Concord  Bridge  on  their 
retreat  from  Lexington.  It  was  of  this  fight  that  Emerson  wrote 
the  immortal  lines : 

Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world. 

Paige's  history  says,  "In  commemoration  of  their  patriotism 
I  insert  a  muster-roll  of  this  company  which  marched  on  the  alarm, 
April  19,  1775."  Thatcher's  company  became  a  part  of  the  regi- 
ment of  Colonel  Thomas  Gardner,  who  was  mortally  wounded 
in  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  died  July  3,  1775.  Washington 
issued  a  special  order  for  his  funeral  services,  paying  a  high  tribute 
to  his  gallant  conduct. 

John  Wyeth  (grandfather),  the  tenth  child  and  sixth  son  of 
Ebenezer  II.,  was  born  at  Cambridge  March  31,  1770,  and  died 
at  Philadelphia  January  23,  1858.  Educated  at  Cambridge,  he 
became  a  printer  and  pubhsher  of  books.  SettHng  in  Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania,  he  foimded  the  Oracle  oj  Dauphin,  the  first  news- 
paper pubHshed  in  that  city,  which  later  became  the  capital  of 
the  state.  He  was  appointed  postmaster  by  President  Washing- 
ton; was  prominent  in  educational  matters;  served  as  president 
of  the  Harrisburg  Academy;  and  built  "Wyeth  HaU,"  the  first 
place  of  public  amusement  in  this  city.  He  amassed  a  consider- 
able fortime,  was  a  Unitarian  in  religion,  and  left  a  reputation  for 
courage  and  integrity  worthy  of  emiilation.  He  married,  June  6, 
1793,  Louisa  Weiss,  of  Philadelphia,  who  was  born  there  April  29, 
1775,  and  died  in  Harrisburg  June  i,  1822.  Her  father,  Wilhelm 
Ludwig  Weiss,  born  in  BerHn,  Prussia,  December  27,  1717,  grad- 
uated at  Lindheim  and  settled  in  Philadelphia,  where  he  studied 

529 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

law  and  became  Justice  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  and  Quarter 
Sessions  of  Philadelphia  County,  and  Justice  of  the  Orphans  Court. 
He  married  Johanna  Pfliiger,  and  died  in  Philadelphia  October 
22,  1796. 

Louis  Weiss  Wyeth,  the  sixth  child  and  next  to  the  youngest  of 
five  brothers  (father  of  our  subject),  was  bom  at  Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania,  June  20,  18 12,  and  died  in  Marshall  County,  Ala- 
bama, July  7,  1889.  He  received  a  classical  education  at  the 
Harrisburg  Academy,  studied  law,  was  admitted  to  practice  in 
1833,  and  in  1836  settled  in  Alabama,  where  he  was  made  County 
Judge  of  Marshall  County  in  1837,  and  later  became  the  leading 
practitioner  of  that  county.  In  1847,  while  in  the  legislature,  he 
secured  the  charter  and  became  president  of  the  Tennessee  & 
Coosa  Railroad,  now  part  of  the  Nashville,  Chattanooga  &  St. 
Louis  Railway  System.  In  1848  he  founded  Guntersville,  the 
present  county-seat,  and  built  al  his  private  expense  a  brick 
court-house  and  jail  which  he  presented  to  Marshall  County. 

He  opposed  secession  in  1861,  but  when  the  convention  voted 
to  join  the  Southern  Confederacy  he  gave  himself  to  the  cause. 
Although  beyond  the  legal  military  age,  he  volunteered  and  served 
at  the  front  until  discharged  on  account  of  a  serious  illness  which 
left  him  unfit  for  duty.  In  1864  he  again  volunteered  in  the  state 
troops  in  the  effort  to  repel  Sherman's  invasion  of  Georgia.  In 
1874  he  was  elected  Judge  of  the  Fifth  Judicial  District  of  Ala- 
bama and  ser\'ed  eight  years,  declining  re-election.  A  year  later 
he  was  offered  the  Chief  Justiceship  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ala- 
bama, which  he  declined.  From  early  youth  to  the  day  of  his 
death  he  was  a  consistent  member  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
One  who  knew  him  well  wrote:  "His  was  the  purest  life,  the  most 
beautiful  and  faultless  character  I  have  ever  known.  Tender, 
brave,  and  true,  he  lived  \vithout  reproach  and  died  without 
fear." 

Large  was  his  bounty  and  his  soul  sincere. 

Louis  Wyeth  married  at  Huntsvillc  on  April  9,  1839,  Euphemia 
Allan. 

MATERNAL   ANCESTRY 

Euphemia  Allan,  daughter  of  John  Allan  and  Nancy  Hodge, 
was  born  at  Gallatin,  Tennessee,  June  17,  181 7,  educated  at  the 

530 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

Huntsville  Seminary,  and  died  at  Guntersville,  Alabama,  Decem- 
ber 27,  1896.  Her  paternal  grandfather  was  David  Allan,  of 
Ayrshire,  Scotland,  who  married  Mary  Knight,  member  of  a 
family  of  wealth  and  influence  in  Dorsetshire,  England.  Here 
on  April  21,  1788,  John  Allan  was  born.  When  he  was  sixteen 
years  old  his  parents  settled  near  Athens,  Georgia.  From  the 
University  of  Georgia,  at  Athens,  he  was  graduated  in  the  class  of 
1807,  and  then  studied  theology,  adding  to  the  classical  course  of 
the  university  the  French  language  and  Hebrew  translation.  A 
man  of  great  learning  and  piety,  he  became  a  Presbyterian  minis- 
ter, married  Nancy  Hodge  July  20,  1809,  was  called  to  the  Presby- 
terian Church  in  Huntsville,  Alabama,  in  1820,  the  pastor  of  which 
he  remained  until  his  death,  November  14,  1843. 

Nancy  Hodge,  his  wife,  was  born  at  Guilford  Court  House,  North 
Carolina,  April  14,  1785.  Her  father,  Joseph  Hodge,  born  in 
England,  1755,  emigrated  to  North  CaroHna,  served  under  Gen- 
eral Greene  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  was  severely  wounded 
in  the  battle  of  Guilford  Court  House,  March  15,  1781.  As  a 
reward  for  his  services  he  received  a  valuable  grant  of  lands  in 
Sumner  County,  Tennessee,  where  he  died  February  28,  1822. 

John  Allan  Wyeth  was  educated  at  the  common  school  at  Gun- 
tersville until  January,  1861,  when  he  became  a  cadet  at  La 
Grange  Military  Academy  (La  Grange  College),  in  Franklin  (now 
Colbert)  County,  Alabama.  Here  he  remained  for  one  year, 
when  on  account  of  the  Civil  War  this  college  was  closed. 

Of  the  teachers  in  the  common  school,  Mr.  W.  D.  Lovett,  of 
Zanesville,  Ohio,  left  the  deepest  impression  upon  his  pupils  and 
the  community.  With  a  thorough  collegiate  training  and  a  sym- 
pathetic nature,  he  had  the  gift  not  only  of  imparting  knowledge, 
but  of  stimulating  his  boys  to  extraordinary  endeavor. 

At  La  Grange  Military  Academy,  where  the  strictest  military 
discipline  prevailed,  with  the  same  curriculum  as  that  of  the  United 
States  Military  Academy  at  West  Point,  the  professors  were  men 
of  high  attainment  and  conscientious  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties.  The  members  of  the  faculty  were  James  W.  Robertson, 
president  and  professor  of  engineering;  William  H.  Hunt,  com- 
mandant of  cadets  and  professor  of  drawing;  Rev.  Felix  Johnson, 
chaplain  and  professor  of  mental  and  moral  science;    Edward 

531 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Goodwin,  of  language  and  literature;  Albert  A.  McGregor,  of 
mathematics;  Rev.  G.  Williams,  history,  natural  science,  and 
chemistry;   and  Dr.  Alfred  Stephenson  as  surgeon.i 

Of  the  179  cadets,  176  serv^ed  in  the  Confederate  army;  23  were 
killed  in  battle,  and  26  died  from  diseases  incident  to  the  service — 
a  death-rate  of  28  per  cent.  Of  the  survivors  many  were  woimded 
one  or  more  times  or  were  physically  impaired  by  sickness  and 
exposure,  which  carried  them  to  untimely  graves  or  seriously 
handicapped  them  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 

In  1862  young  Wyeth  served  with  a  company  of  Partisan 
Rangers  and  with  Quirk's  Scouts  of  Morgan's  cavalry,  and  from 
April,  1863,  to  the  surrender  in  April,  1865,  was  a  private  in 
Company  I  (Russell's  regiment),  Fourth  Alabama  Cavalry,  He 
was  present  in  the  engagements  at  Law's  Landing,  June  7,  1862; 
Glasgow,  Bear  Wallow,  Upton's  Station,  Elizabethtown,  Mul- 
drough's  Hill,  and  Rolling  Fork,  December  24,  25,  26,  27,  28,  and 
29,  1862;  Shelbyville,  Tennessee,  June  27,  1863;  Morris's  Ford, 
Elk  River,  and  Winchester,  July  2d;  in  a  series  of  skirmishes  pre- 
ceding the  battle  of  Chickamauga  and  in  that  battle,  September 
18,  19,  and  20,  1863,  and  September  21st,  in  McLemore's  Cove. 
He  took  part  in  the  action  at  Cottonport,  September  30th,  and 
in  the  captiire  of  General  Rosecrans's  great  supply-train  in  Sequat- 
chie Valley,  October  2,  1863.  Taken  prisoner  October  4,  1863, 
he  was  confined  at  Camp  Morton,  Indiana,  and  exchanged  in 
April,  1865.  In  1866  and  1867  he  was  engaged  in  farming  in 
Alabama;  began  the  study  of  medicine  and  graduated  in  April, 
1869.  Impressed  with  the  importance  of  a  thorough  laboratory 
and  practical  chnical  training  under  the  guidance  of  expert  in- 
structors as  a  prerequisite  to  practice,  in  order  to  secure  the 
means  to  take  his  coiirse  of  study  he  engaged  in  business  for  three 
years  in  the  state  of  Arkansas,  chiefly  in  transporting  materials 
in  connection  with  public  works.  He  served  as  pilot  and  in  charge 
of  the  steamer  Converse,  completing  his  contracts  in  May,  1872. 

In  October,  1872,  he  resumed  his  professional  studies  in  New 
York  City,  receiving  the  degree  ad  eundem  in  March,  1873,  at 
Bellevue  Hospital  Medical  College,  in  which  institution  in  April 

^  A  brief  sketch  of  each  of  these  gentlemen  is  given  in  the  History  of  La 
Grange  Military  Academy  and  the  Cadet  Corps,  by  the  author. 

532 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

of  that  year  he  was  appointed  assistant  demonstrator  of  anatomy. 
In  1874  he  was  made  prosector  to  the  chair  of  anatomy,  and  in 
1875  instructor  for  the  faculty.  On  account  of  a  long  and  severe 
illness  which  incapacitated  him  for  work  for  nearly  two  years  he 
resigned  from  Bellevue  College  and  visited  the  medical  centers 
of  Europe. 

In  1880  he  was  appointed  visiting  surgeon  to  Mount  Sinai 
Hospital  and  consulting  surgeon  to  St.  Elizabeth  Hospital.  In 
1 88 1  he  founded  and  became  surgeon  in  chief  and  later  president 
of  the  New  York  Polyclinic  Medical  School  and  Hospital,  the  first 
postgraduate  medical  organization  in  America,  which  has  grown 
to  be  one  of  the  largest  and  most  successful  teaching  institutions 
in  the  United  States. 

In  1885,  and  again  In  1886,  he  was  elected  president  of  the  New 
York  Pathological  Society;  1893,  first  vice-president,  and,  in 
1 90 1,  president  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  having 
been  in  1900  elected  president  of  the  New  York  State  Medical 
Association.  In  the  same  year  the  honorary  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Laws  was  conferred  upon  him  by  the  University  of  Alabama, 
and  in  1908  the  same  by  the  University  of  Maryland.  In  1907, 
and  again  in  1908,  he  was  elected  president  of  the  New  York 
Southern  Society,  and  from  1907  to  19 11  president  of  the  New 
York  Academy  of  Medicine.  In  19 13  the  Hospital  Alliance 
of  Greater  New  York  elected  him  their  president,  as  did  the 
Alabama  Society. 

He  married,  April  10,  1886,  Florence  Nightingale  Sims,  daughter 
of  the  great  surgeon,  J.  Marion  Sims,  in  whose  honor  a  statue 
in  bronze  now  stands  in  Bryant  Park,  New  York  City.  Another 
has  been  erected  by  the  legislature  of  his  native  state  in  the 
capitol  groimds  at  Columbia,  South  Carolina. 

By  this  union  there  are  three  children.  Florence  Sims  Wyeth 
graduated  from  Barnard  College,  Columbia  University,  1909; 
Marion  Sims  Wyeth,  Princeton,  19 10;  and  John  Allan  Wyeth, 
Jr.,  Princeton  class  of  19 15. 

He  is  the  author  of  a  Hmidhook  of  Medical  and  Surgical  Refer- 
ence (1875);  an  essay  on  "Dextral  Preference  (or  Right-Handed- 
ness)  in  Man"  (1875);  a  "Monograph  on  Minor  Surgery  (1876)." 
In  1876  he  received  the  award  of  the  Bellevue  Hospital  Medical 

533 


WITH    SABRE   AND    SCALPEL 

College  Alumni  Association  prize  for  "the  best  essay  on  any  sub- 
ject connected  with  surgery  or  surgical  pathology,"  his  subject 
being  "Amputation  at  the  Ankle-joint."  In  1878  he  received  the 
first  prize  of  the  American  Medical  Association  for  an  essay  on 
"The  Surgical  Anatomy  and  Surgery  of  the  Carotid  Arteries," 
and  received  the  second  prize  of  the  same  association  (1878)  for 
an  essay  on  the  "Surgical  Anatomy  and  Surgery  of  the  Innomi- 
nate and  Subclavian  Arteries."  At  this  time  he  published  an 
essay  on  the  "Obturator  Arteries  and  the  Importance  of  their 
Relation  to  Hernia,"  and  later  a  pamphlet  on  "Suprapubic 
Cystotomy,  with  a  Report  of  Sixty  Cases";  "Osteoplastic  Opera- 
tion for  the  Correction  of  Deformities  of  the  Alveolar  Arch 
and  for  Cleft  Palate  and  Harelip";  "Removal  of  the  Lower 
Jaw  from  Within  the  Mouth  Without  External  Incision";  "The 
Surgical  Treatment  of  Aneurisms  of  the  Arch  of  the  Aorta,  In- 
nominate, Subclavian,  and  Carotid  Arteries  by  the  Distal  Liga- 
ture," and  "Some  Original  Researches  on  the  Occlusion  of  Arteries 
by  Cell  Proliferation."  In  1886  he  made  public  the  first  recorded 
case  of  the  cure  of  sarcoma  by  streptococcus  infection.  In  1890 
he  made  public  his  "Bloodless  Method  of  Amputation  at  the 
Shoulder  and  Hip  Joints,"  and  in  1903  "A  New  Method  of  Treat- 
ing Inoperable  Vascular  Tumors  by  the  Injection  into  their  Sub- 
stance of  Water  at  a  High  Temperature." 

In  1895  he  delivered  an  oration  on  J.  Marion  Sims  and  his 
work  before  the  Southern  Surgical  and  Gynecological  Association 
at  Washington,  and  an  address  on  medical  education  before 
the  Mississippi  Valley  Medical  Association,  at  Louisville,  in  1890. 
In  1886  he  published  the  first  edition  of  his  text-book  on  surgery, 
which  in  1909  had  passed  through  four  separate  editions.  In  190 1, 
at  St.  Paul,  he  delivered  the  "Oration  on  Surgery"  before  the 
American  Medical  Association,  and  the  "President's  Address" 
before  the  same  association  at  Saratoga  in  1902. 

Among  his  contributions  to  other  than  professional  literature 
are:  An  article  in  the  Century  Magazine  for  April,  1891,  entitled, 
"Cold  Cheer  in  Camp  Morton,"  a  narrative  of  prison  life  from 
October,  1863,  to  February,  1865;  an  historical  sketch  in  Harper's 
Magazine,  November,  1892,  entitled,  "Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth  and 
the  Struggle  for  Oregon";    in  Harper's  Weekly,  1898,  "General 

534 


WITH    SABRE    AND    SCALPEL 

Wheeler's  Leap,"  a  sketch  of  the  battle  of  Shelbyville,  June  27, 
1863:  a  series  of  articles  on  "General  N.  B.  Forrest  at  Fort  Donel- 
son";  "The  Capture  of  Colonel  A.  D.  Straight  and  his  Entire 
Command";  " The  Storming  of  Fort  Pillow " ;  " Forrest  at  Brice's 
Cross-roads" — all  in  Harper's  Magazine,  1889.  In  Volume  IV. 
of  the  History  oj  the  Civil  War,  published  in  19 12,  is  given  by  him 
the  narration  of  an  expedition  through  the  Union  lines  at  Chicka- 
mauga,  a  sketch  of  General  John  H.  Morgan's  "Christmas  Raid," 
and  General  Wheeler's  captiu"e  of  General  Rosecrans's  wagon- 
train  in  Sequatchie  Valley,  October  2,  1863, 

In  1899  his  Life  oj  General  Nathan  Bedford  Forrest  was  published 
by  Harper  &  Brothers,  a  second  edition  being  issued  in  1908.  In 
1907  he  published  his  History  of  La  Grange  Military  Academy  and 
the  Cadet  Corps,  and  in  19 14  the  book  entitled  With  Sabre  and 
Scalpel  (Harper  &  Brothers). 


THE    END 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 

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R154.W97 


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Wyeth 


W^T 


